Holy Cow! A post!

Race Review: The Ikea Montour Trail Run.

So this morning, I sacrificed the only morning I could possibly sleep in on and headed out for the Ikea Half-marathon. You'd think that since I've been to the Ikea before, I wouldn't get lost. You would be wrong.

Luckily, I got unlost without having to try and wake up anyone to play GPS for me and without visiting Erie PA (it was a little iffy for a moment there - yay for illegal U-turns). I got there with plenty of time to spare though and even got to stand in the porta-potty line. I'll tell you...no matter how many times I go in advance, I always have to go if there's porta-potties. I can run for 2.5 hours at home and never stop...but does that matter before a race? Of course not. I actually saw a porta-potty get "discontinued" after some guy used it. I have to admit - I was impressed. The standards for porta-potties are pretty low, but I couldn't quite bring myself to look and see what he did to it. And I didn't want to be mistaken for the lowest of the low...the porta-potty line cutter.

Anyway, enough about the porta potties. The race started in the Ikea parking lot and went downhill for about a half mile before we hit the Montour trail. This was not as fun as it sounded...the grade was pretty steep and I never warm up. Even my shins were a little sore by the time we finished the hill. I also attribute my ridiculous 6:50 first mile to the hill. It had to be the hill...the alternative is that I'm an idiot. My second mile dropped down to 7:50, which is much more reasonable. I settled into a nice 8min/mile pace after that and just cruised along. The gradient leveled out after the first mile and I could tell if it was uphill or downhill. Coming back felt slightly downhill, but it was so slight as to be irrelevant.

The trail was very nice, if un-challenging. It was wide enough to serve and an out-and-back and still let people pass each other. The scenery was nice, with my favorite part being an covered railway tunnel, that was very cool. It was pretty long too. The weather was very good, if a little damp. It was kind enough to wait until I finished to start seriously thundering.

The race management was quite good. Some girl on the bus complained about the lack of cheering, but honestly...who comes to a trail race expecting cheering? People would have to hike up to seven miles each way to reach the back parts of the trail, and I think that's kind of silly. There was several water stops (about one every two miles), and mile markers at each mile. That's good enough for me. There was fruit at the race tent and some bread, although no bagels.

There was one element of the race that made me very, very happy. They didn't take us back up that damned hill. Brilliant! They had the turn-around at mile seven and just ended on a flat straightaway. I could have kissed someone when I saw the finish.

I did okay...1hours45min5seconds, which works out to 8:01 minutes a mile. I didn't place, but that's okay. I did walk away with 26 hair ties, for some reason. I guess they had an excess since some volunteer was walking around giving out handfuls of the things to anyone with long hair. So...I guess that's good. I usually just have one, but I suppose it never hurts to have 26 spares.

In other news, I decided yesterday that yes, Pediatrics is for me. Now that I've had the clerkship, I feel that I can honestly say this and mean it. Now, if only I didn't have to work tomorrow, everything would be peachy.