When we found out there was a race with the name Dino in it, and they gave you a dinosaur medal when you finished, how could Team Baby Dino not sign up for this race?????
Pre-Race
We left for Vernal early Thursday morning, planning a detour into Vail so we could see our friend Nic who was in rehab for her hip. She used to have old hips and now she has new hips. :-) We had coffee and good conversation as we always do, then she wished us good luck and told us to get back on the road.
We pulled into Vernal Thursday afternoon, and were too tired to do anything. So we did nothing, and it was glorious. After all, this was my vacation!
Friday we went to Dinosaur National Monument and saw a lot of cool old dinosaur bones. We did a bit of hiking in the park, and saw the museum as welll. Lots of dinosaurs! Then we headed back to the hotel to pick up our race stuff. Our hotel was the site of this, which was kind of nice. However, they weren't the most helpful people in the world.
After that, we ventured out for our breakfast dinner, which was hard to do in Vernal. Dennys was packed, and some diner didn't serve breakfast. We found a place in some hotel that did. After that, we found the elementary school where we'd board a bus to the start of the race. Headed back to the hotel after that where I watched the Wild lose to the Blackhawks in round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs. What is it about me watching my team lose the night before a race??
Race Morning
We woke up early enough to head downstairs for breakfast. We were down there right at 5:55 because the buses left the elementary school between 6:00 and 6:40. 6:00 comes and goes, and there's no eggs or bacon. We waited nearly 15 minutes for scrambled eggs, which were gross.
Then we hightailed it to the school, where there were...no buses. We sat around waiting, and 6:40 came and went with no buses. They rolled into the parking lot just after 7:00, where I lamented that the race was not going to start on time. We boarded the first bus which more or less just followed the course. Along the way, we kept wondering about the hills and how we'd handle them.
Eventually we parked, disembarked, and threw our clothes bag into a Budget Truck. Then we waited for a bit longer before the race started. It was cold; desert, early morning, etc.
Finally, a weak-ass airhorn blew and we were on our way!
The Race
For the first couple miles, I didn't feel undertrained at all. In fact, I was feeling strong and confident. But pretty early on, my bowels betrayed me and I had to hit a porta-potty mid-race. I felt bad about it for T, because we were both moving well. But around mile 4, she had to re-tie her shoe, so we both got our stop.
Like I said, we were moving very well. Pretty much until Mile 8. I was overall very impressed with how we felt, and realized my goal of 2:30:00 would easily fall. In mile 9 though, we fell apart, and we fell apart hard. I'm not surprised given the training, but still. The views we got though were pretty amazing. It was a deep canyon in Utah, and the rock formations were unlike anything I had ever seen before. The scenery was great. And the hills were not bad at all; in fact, it turned out to be a downhill race.
When we hit town, we agreed that we were going to cross the finish line together. T was stronger and could have beaten me, but we decided Team Baby Dino was crossing the line together.
And we did (almost, she beat me by .6 seconds!)
Race time: 2:21:49.6
Post-Race
Overall, I feel pretty good about this race. I think we could have done a bit better (always) but with where we are at in training, I'll gladly take it.
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