Canyonlands Half ~ I've been exfoliated!

I did it! I finished the Canyonlands Half Marathon....barely. Let's just say that training in Dallas did expose me to the 40 degree weather, but did not prepare me for 40 degrees with 27 mph winds, steep hills, windy roads, or exfoliation. Yes, exfoliation! Apparently, when you are running through a canyon of red rocks in 27 mph winds you get sandblasted...literally! There was no sun in sight but we had to run in sunglasses to protect our eyes from the dirt.

Our resort was past the starting line so the resort provided us with transportation, which is great but had to happen 2 hours before the race began so that they could get off the road before it was closed. Standing outside in 40 degree weather for 2 hours does not rank high on my things to do list but add 27 mph winds and flying dirt/rocks and I'll go ahead and move that near the bottom of my list. I never thought I would be excited to run 13.1 miles but if it got me moving through this dirt storm I was all for it.

Jan and I had decided to run together because I needed her to pace me and quite frankly Jan is more entertaining than my iPod and I knew she would make the time fly by. At mile 2 I stopped for gatorade and lost Jan! I thought she was behind me so I waited for 5 minutes and she thought I was ahead of her so she was trying to catch up. I didn't see her again until mile 6. We all had on matching shirts but they were a pale pink and I kept seeing other brunettes with pink shirts. I finally decided to look for Jan's hot pink shorts and I saw her at the top of a hill that I was at the bottom of. I sprinted all the way up the hill and finally caught up.

I was so happy to find Jan but when I found her she was not doing well. She had hurt her foot a few days ago and after running 6 miles on it she was convinced it was broken and was unsure if she was going to be able to finish the race. I stayed with her for 2 more miles while she was trying to decide if she was going to the medic or if she would try to finish the race. I mile 8 she told me to go on without her.

I hit the killer hill at mile 9 and was surprised that I felt ok. I kept chugging along until mile 12 and then I...wanted...to...DIE!. It was all I could do to keep moving to finish at 2:31. My goal of 2:20 was shot but I didn't care. I was so worried about Jan, after I found Adam, Kari, and Lee we went straight to the medic tent to look for her. But she wasn't there...she ended up walking the last 6 miles so that she could finish the race! She headed straight for the medic tent and wasn't surprised to find us all there.

My not so big finish:

What you look like after 2 1/2 hours of exfoliation:

Check out Jan's race review and more pics on her blog: Duh! Winning!