crack of dawn

Because I'm a crazy person, I signed up for the Crack of Dawn 8K which took place Saturday, June 18th, at 6 a.m.  Did you get that last part?  6 a.m. start.  The only reason I thought this was a good idea was because the race was all downhill: the start was a mile above Log Haven in Millcreek Canyon and the finish line was in the shopping plaza at the base of the canyon road.  I'm guessing that the reason the race started so early was to get the runners in and out of the canyon before all the hikers/bikers/dog-walkers/picnickers started showing up as Millcreek is a very popular place.

Our instructions were to pick up our timing chips at the finish line between 5-5:15 a.m. and get up to the start by 5:30 a.m.  There were buses bringing people up to the start or, if you could convince someone to get up early with you, you could get dropped off.  I promised H and Paul that I'd buy breakfast if they'd take me to the start and thus, because we're apparently all nuts, we got up and out the door by 4:35 a.m. to meet all our deadlines.  The sky started getting brighter around 5:30 a.m. while the guys waited with me at the start.  I sent them down the canyon at 5:45 a.m. and by the time we started running, the sun was peeking over the canyon walls.

Eight kilometers (right around five miles) is a lot of down, let me tell you that.  I was worried that my knees would take a beating but it was my quadriceps that ended up being sore.  The first mile was great - and when I checked my pace, I was running nearly twice as fast as my regular flat pace! - but then it started getting steeper in some spots, and I could feel the stress in my legs.  Breathing wasn't a problem since gravity was doing all the work; the fatigue came from fighting the downhill for that distance.  And if that wasn't enough, the last .5K was uphill - a tiny little rise to the finish line, which was just mean.

Bring on breakfast!

It was actually quite fun, above grumbling aside.  My pace averaged out to being two minutes/mile faster than normal and I finished in the top half of the 106 entrants, which surprised me because it seemed like everyone was passing me.  And the best part was that I had run five miles before 7:00 a.m., leaving me to chow down on corned beef hash and eggs at the Silver Fork Lodge completely guilt-free.