Columbia Gorge Half Marathon (10/22/17)

I'm very goal oriented. I do OK at self motivation, but if I give myself an outside goal (and a little competition), I really excel. That's one reason I love to race - because it gives me structure and motivation to get out and run!

I sought a fall half marathon to get me through the summer months and chose the Columbia Gorge Half Marathon on Oct. 22 in Hood River. It was described as gorgeous fall scenery and very hilly. Yep! Definitely lived up to its reputation.

Since it was a stormy weekend, and the forecast threatened mass amounts of rain, I was prepared for a very wet (but not too cold) race. But Brad and I arrived in Hood River to this:

NICE! It ended up being dry the entire race :)

The start was right next to the river. Not a bad place to hang out:

There was a huge tent set up at the start/finish, which would have been a lifesaver had the rains arrived. Still, it was nice to be inside and then step out to the start line (literally just to my left in this picture)

Parking would have been ample (and right next to the starting area), but the storm flooded the gravel lot, severely limiting available spots. Since we were coming from Portland, we arrived nice and early and grabbed a spot out of the huge puddles.

Inside the tent were tons of snacks and places to sit. Outside were plenty of porta-potties. Lines got long but moved quickly.

The out-and-back course had some serious elevation gain - mostly uphill the whole first half. This prompted me to run hills over the summer, choosing hills I would normally avoid in my daily routes.

We started next to the river and headed east to the Scenic Columbia Highway trail.

The only really weird thing was the starting corrals. We were supposed to self-select our start time based on our predicted speed. Since it's very hilly, I hung back to a comfortable pace group. But they staggered the starts by 10 minutes! A minute or 2 would have been sufficient. I ended up starting about 20 minutes after the first gun. That was odd. I guess it was to keep from crowding the narrow(ish) course, but it was strange to wait so long to start.

Brad was along just to spectate and be my personal photographer. Too bad he missed me at the start :)

I could tell he didn't see me as I ran past :)

Because most of the miles were on the trail, there were very few spectators. But I knew Brad would be waiting at the turnaround in Mosier!

Here I come, zooming out of the tunnel and up the hill:

Not knowing what to expect from this course, I simply had the goal of running most of the hills. And I made it to the turnaround without walking!

I walked briefly to greet Brad and take a gel. Then I was off!

Another weird thing was the half relay option. A whole bunch of runners were waiting at the turnaround to START their race.

Unfortunately, there was a bit of a hill after the turnaround, and without knowing the course and having great pacing (since I'm not used to racing hills like this), I struggled a bit. I had to take some extra walk breaks and ended up positive splitting the second half. (my time was slower in the second half than the first half) I had hoped to gain some time on the downhill return, but that wasn't in the cards this time.

Side note - the overall winner (A WOMAN!!!!) hit exact even splits. But the next three runners all positive split, too. In looking at the results, many people were in the same pacing boat as me :)

Check out this view:

This really was a gorgeous course!

Brad was waiting as I kicked as hard as I could across the finish (I didn't have much kick left!):

My official time was 2:09:10 - a 9:52 average. My first half was 1:03:10 (9:39 average) - second half was 1:05:59 (10:04 average).

I'm disappointed that I couldn't translate those downhills into fast numbers, but I'm happy that I ran a very strong hilly first half! I was 332 out of 1,002 overall, 39th of 199 in my age place, and 177 of 713 for all females. 

I would definitely recommend this race! But work on your hills :)