Palo Duro 20k

I am late in posting my blog on this experience, but better late than never! Here is how the story goes...

My BFF Melissa decided this race was to be her goal race. I thought why not do it too? It fell in line with my training schedule...was supposed to do 12 miles that day anyway...what's .5 more? Now when I registered I read the name of the race: Palo Duro Canyon Trail Run. I thought trail run...meh...there are trails around White Rock. I've done hash runs on trails before, no biggie. Boy was I wrong! This race was much harder than I ever predicted. I showed up at the start to run with Melissa, stick with her through out the race, keep her motivated and encouraged. I treated it as a training run and not a race. To me it was more important to see her reach her goal!

So about the race & course itself. I knew it'd be somewhat of a challenge, but I wasn’t at all prepared for the ups and downs of the trail. I am pretty sure after this experience I can say that I’m 98% a road runner. I got sightings of the road during the race and wanted just a little pavement. I got some…like 10 feet. A few places on the course spit us out onto the road for just a taste of road and asphalt, then sent us back onto the trail. Thanks for the teaser. We started at 7:30 am, just as the sun was rising over the canyon. It was such a beautiful site! The first 3 miles were not hard at all, so we felt pretty good. We were thinking this was going to be a breeze! Then around mile 4ish when we started the up & down climbs, we took back the "this is easy". The up & down climbs lasted pretty much the majority of the race...some were short, some were long, but all were difficult. The aid/water stations were so much better than road races. We had our choice of the following: water, gatorade, Coke, M&Ms, candy bars, potato chips, sliced bananas adn the BEST of all: PB&J squares. Can you say heaven! The volunteers were so nice & encouraging...they'd even talk to you untile you were ready to run again. There is a different mindset and attitude with trail runners vs. road racers. They aren't focused on a PR, and if they are you'd never know it. At the mile 9 aid station there was a mama deer that was hanging out eating sliced bananas...it was an awesome site. And also at mile 9 was the stair case of death. Our legs were already becoming shaky, then we have to manuever a nearly vertical decent down to a clearing where a photographer was waiting was intimidating. And what a crappy place for a photo op. You either look frightened or thankful to have survived without injury. We had to go down these satirs of death step by step holding on to tree branches for dear life. Melissa slipped a couple of times and I kep telling her not to fall...I didn't have any band-aids. :-).

The majority of the second half of the trail was walking...and that was fine by us! We were saving it for a strong finish! We rounded the corner and could hear all our friends who had already finished yelling & cheering for us! I love that! It always gives me an extra burst of energy! We made it across the finish! Melissa's Garmin clocked 3:57:24. Fine by me...so many things were not in our favor...Melissa was sick and fighting allergies the entire run, it was not a road race which is all I've ran up to this point, and it was a challenging course. The remaining question is: Where are the cheeseburgers and beer??

Melissa, I am so proud of you for putting the hours & miles and completing your goal race...sick and all! You did great! The Las Vegas half will be a piece of cake now! Keep up all the good work!

Thanks to Melissa & Dave for letting me tag along. The canyon is georgous and I'd love to go back.

Next up: DRC half & White Rock half.