I have wanted to do this race the last two years. It always sounded like a great trail and a lot of fun. Unfortunately my body has not cooperated much in the last few months and didn't want to cooperate very much during the race. Before the race started I knew that my right hip/si joint was not fully functional and would cause some issues. I hoped they wouldn't migrate back into my newly fixed psoas, so I decided to take the race fairly east to try to not damage anything further, which mostly worked. The race starts up in Deer Valley by the Stein Erickson lodge. It does a one mile loop around the city streets to thin out the crowd and then back on the mid mountain trail until the Canyons. I picked up my packet around 6:45am. It was a little cool, but very manageble temperature. They opened the Silver Lake Lodge at 7am for some nice comfy warm bathrooms. Much nicer than the typical porto-potties at races. The race was organized very nice and started pretty much on time. The start was a blue line drawn on the ground. I ran into Steve Cuttitta who I ran against in the Timp Trail Half in May. He looked like he was going to go out strong and probably win this one. As the race started I bounced between 4th and 7th through the first mile and kept around 5th place through the first 7 miles or so. The trails were marked very well, at least through every part of the race other than where I took a wrong turn around mile 22, though obviously marked well enough for most people. I loved all of these trails. Very well maintained, the grades are easy both up and down. They got fairly rocky in a few spots, in particular after the 3rd aid station it got very rocky for a couple of miles, but still manageble. There were some mountain bikers out on the trail and they almost all graciously moved to the side of the trail to let the runners by. The aid stations were all manned by very nice and enthusiastic people ringing cow bells and cheering. It was nice to hear them from quite a distance to know how close other runners were ahead and behind by the sound of the cow bell. You can never have enough cow bell. I started having stomach issues around mile 13 that continued through the end of the race which certainly didn't help anything. I had planned to gu up every 30 minutes, but only managed to eat one gu at 30 minutes and it took me another hour starting at hour 1 to eat a package of honey stinger chews. After mile 7 my psoas started to tighten up more so I slowed down a bit to keep from hurting too may things during the run. I slowly started to get passed over the next 11-13 miles or so. I think I was around 10th place around mile 22 when I took a wrong turn and ran at least an extra half a mile. I stood around awhile at a crossroads wondering where the markings were, and headed down another wrong trail for a couple of minutes before I decided I must have missed something before, so headed back up the mountain. I lost a good 10 places during this little bypass and probably 10-15 minutes of time. The leg kept me from keeping any decent pace the last 4-5 miles of downhill to the finish, but it was a great time. Loved this trail and look forward to running it again someday when in better health.
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