Crazy Horse Half Marathon Race Report!

Me and Christa before the race

Around Mile 2
Headed to the finish
Finishing!
John, Christa, and I after the race
Me and my medal!

On Saturday, I ran my 4th half marathon at Crazy Horse Memorial. It was my 3rd half marathon that I have run this year all within 4 months of each other. I completed the Black Hills Trifecta completing all 3 of the Black Hills races in one year! I had such a great time with this race - it was a lot of fun. I didn't really have a time goal in mind except that I wanted to beat my June half time. I knew I wouldn't PR as my August half was ALL downhill and the fastest course ever. My time at the June half was 2:16:14 so I was pretty confident that I could run a little faster than that. I knew I needed to stay right around the 10:00 minute/mile mark to get a 2:10 so I decided that I would try for that.

Because Caiden started soccer this year, we decided that Chris and the kids would stay at home so Caiden could play his soccer game on Saturday morning so I went up to the race with a friend of mine (also named Chris!) who was also running the same race. Friday night, we headed to Rapid to pick up our packets and eat some dinner. After picking up our packets, we made our way to the Olive Garden where I got to meet a few people from a website that I go to a lot, sparkpeople.com. It may sound weird to meet people that you talk to online, but it's not...really! It was such a fun time eating with her and her sister and brother-in-law. I really felt like I already knew her just from being on Sparkpeople! Thanks for coming to "MY" side of the state Coop! :)

After dinner, my friend, Chris, and I headed to Hill City (where the race would finish) and got our motel room and I was in bed early as I was already tired from watching 10 kids all day! 4:00am came fast, but I had slept really well so that was a plus. We headed to the finish line where they would bus us up to Crazy Horse. We ended up getting there at 5:30am and the race didn't start until 7am so we were there for quite a long time! I mostly just rested my eyes and did some stretching and of course went to the bathroom about 4 times!

We all walked up to the start line at 6:45 and I saw Christa and her BIL John ready to run! I also saw another local runner ready to go, Rachael, and she said she was going for a sub 2 hour half so I didn't think I would be seeing much of her during the race!

At 7:00am on the dot, we were off! The first part of the race was TOUGH. Lots of up and down and the hills were pretty steep. One in particular kicked my butt and I had to walk a litte bit up it which just made me mad! But after mile 3, we got onto the Mickelson Trail and it was smooth sailing from there. Also after mile 3, my miles were very consistent staying within the 9:50s for each mile. Mile 2 was the only really off mile with that big ole dumb hill in it. I felt really well during most of the race and didn't really start getting tired until the end of mile 11 where I met up with Racheal and she asked me how long we had been running. I told her it was almost 2 hours so she was bummed that she wasn't going to get her sub 2 hours, so we ran together for a little while, but she was hurting pretty badly so she stopped to walk for a minute. I was also very tired, but I figured if I walked, it would take me that much longer to finish! I got back into Hill City and started hearing the cheering and I could see the cones leading to the finish. I was almost done! When I got to the finish, the clock was ticking closer and closer to 2:12 so I sprinted to the end so I could end with a 2:11 something.

And I did! My official time was 2:11:34, which was a little slower than I wanted, but still faster than the Deadwood Half so I will take it! I ended up 133rd out of 239, 70th out of 154 women, and 19th out of 32 in my age group (25-29). Here are my mile splits - can you tell where the biggest hill was??? :)

Mile 1 - 10:02
Mile 2 - 10:52
Mile 3 - 9:54
Mile 4 - 9:55
Mile 5 - 9:56
Mile 6 - 9:51
Mile 7 - 9:45
Mile 8 - 9:54
Mile 9 - 9:52
Mile 10 - 9:57
Mile 11 - 9:54
Mile 12 - 9:56
Mile 13 - 10:04
Mile 13.1 - 1:00

So, there it is! Thanks for reading! It was a very fun race!