Two Half Marathons In Two States In Two Days Road Trip...Day 4 - RACE DAY!

Find out about the 1st day of our journey here: Crazy Road Trip...Day 1
Find out about the 2nd day of our journey here: Crazy Road Trip...Day 2
Find out about the 3rd day of our journey here: 



{The Events of this Blog Entry Happened on 05/07/2016}

Well...It's A Look!

Okay so OMG it is the day of the Grand Canyon Half Marathon.  The day that my two half marathons in two days begins.  The day that would either make or break me. I got about 6 hours of sleep so I was dragging a bit when I walked in the bathroom and saw my face all I could think was that it was a good thing I didn't have to look beautiful to run this race! {Because I mean yikes! Look at my face...I look like a partied all night and was heading out for the hair of the dog remedy so I could function...when all I had was one Guinness!!}




I knew that today's race was going to be a long one and it didn't help that my nerves were out of control {and by that I mean they had lost their damn mind} because this was my first real "Trail" race ever! I was excited to knock that off the bucket list so that I could do more of them in the future but in my head at the moment that I woke up I was going to die...in the woods...with nothing but me and my new trail running shoes.  One thing that I knew was going to be super important {espically after the lesson I learned at the Tacoma City Half Marathon...god that race sucked!!!} would be me getting a good meal in from the beginning.  So I took the left over steak, potatoes and veggies and ate some of that! {Not going to lie an egg would have made it perfect but whatchu going to do when you only have limited amounts of time in the morning and no way to cook anything...that's right you close your eyes and dream of eggs LOL!} One thing that I completely switched up and changed this race {I know, I know, I know! Don't try anything new on race day...well dammit I had no choice - Limited coffee options in the Grand Canyon itself LOL!!!} was that rather than finding a coffee stand because that just wasn't going to happen in the Grand Canyon area, I decided to give the Vanilla Frappe bottle from Starbucks a try! WOW!!  So happy I did that because between the food and the coffee I was perfect and ready to go...conquer this canyon!

So while I may not have been ready for this specific half marathon through the canyon they call grand...there was one thing I was not counting on, SNOW! I mean come on!!!  This girl might be from the North and doesn't mind the snow but HOLY HELL I sure didn't pack for this kind of weather...never in my life did I think that it was going to be in Arizona in May and it would snow!

Okay so I took a bit to get over my shock at 0530 and headed out to get dropped off...however, we were now on a frantic hunt to see who would be open this early so I could get oh I don't know a hat, gloves or an Alaskan Parka! We did find the local gas station in town that was open and I was able to grab hand warmers and a hat...which without I would have wanted to die!!!

After the impromptu shopping trip and shock wore off my MIL took me down to the start line with

snow still falling for me to begin my very first trail race.  One of the things that I love the most about Vacation Races is how well it is organized and even thought I thought that I was going to vomit from being so nervous at the beginning it was not chaotic at all.  So here we are all 2000 people standing around Smokey the Bear...in the snow...waiting for the official start to happen and the waves to be let loose in the Grand Canyon.

So now I heard the words I was excited to hear and the first group headed out and the excitement started to built even more because I was about to start making my way throught the GRAND CANYON and there would be a kick ass medal waiting at the end for me! It was fun to watch each wave take off and I had a goal in my mind that I would be done by 03:30:00 and back on the road shortly after to head to the Tinkerbell Half Marathon at Disneyland...but I'm telling you I should have taken the snow that was falling from the sky as a sign of what was to come for me {...then again, how often do I take hints?! Exactly, my point!!}!






So for the first 1.5ish miles we were running on compact gravel that was HORRID to run on.  I have only been a pavement runner up to this point and it was possible that with the first couple of steps that I took that I was regretting not doing more {well actually ANY} trail running before coming down here to the Grand Canyon but WHO CARES I WAS RUNNING IN THE GRAND CANYON!!!  About .75 miles in a runner that was running late and much faster of a runner than myself came barreling through and got caught up trying to push past me and ended up tripping me!  So now here I was picking myself up off the ground with an ankle that was now killing me and NEVER ENDING GRAVEL!!!  I told myself that I was just going to take it easy the whole time because I was here and I was not going to quit.  So until about mile three I hung out with the sweeper ladies and helped them motivate the who were at the back of the pack and already thinking they werre just not able to do it and some first timers that were still freaked out! The one thing that was nice was that the sweepers were amazing! They reminded me that it wasn't my fault that someone came pushing their way through and knocked me down...and hurt my ankle...and there was no shame in taking it easy for a while.  So that's exactly what I did until about mile 3 {lots of run/walk intervals...that seemed to get my legs opened up and my ankle feeling better after a while!}.

At the three mile point I decided that I was going to take off from the sweepers and see how I could do on my own.  One of the things that I loved the most about this race was the unlimited amount of views