I see that I have back to back race entries in Spartans in Arizona. The first and last Spartans of the year are usually in Arizona, at least for the Western USA. It's not the worst to travel to be when it's winter everywhere else! Plus I like racing in the desert.
The earlier 7:15 start for the Age Group was pretty chilly. Luckily the dunk wall was at mile 4, so I had a significant amount of time to warm up as the sun finally came out.
My friend Christi had moved up to my age group, so we raced together for about first the half of the race. She pulled away, I missed the spear, and then I sort of lost the plot in my mind to keep my motivation high. By the time I finished Christi was 7 minutes ahead of me and I was in 3rd. Oh well, I like all the medals, so I was actually happy :) The Super was 6.7 miles and I finished in 1:27.
I had redemption on my mind the next morning and vowed to keep my head in the game. I started later to get a little sunshine in the air before racing. The shorter Sprint race was only 3.2 miles and the dunk wall was 2 miles in. I was dreading it, but the adrenaline of the race made it bearable. Barely. I finished in 39:53 and that was good enough to get me a 1st place....actually I finished first women overall in Age Group which is unusually good for me.
I've got a few races coming up, including a 30k trail race in St George, a Spartan near Las Vegas, and another Spartan in San Jose near Jim's mom. I'd like to try to PR my marathon again this year, but that would require diligent training. We will see.
Awesome photos!!!!
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