Revel Big Cottonwood Half Marathon September 14 2024

Thoughts on Revel Big Cottonwood September 14, 2024

Definitely fast. One of my K's was 4:37, which I can't do in speed work, let alone a 21 k distance. Finish time was 1:54:05 (5:25/k) 16 seconds per k faster than my flat course goal pace of 5:41/k. Still, I did well within my age group - 11th out of 44 so 25th percentile.

Kelly pacing was awesome, as usual. She pushed me when I wanted to slow down and we definitely got the best out of my effort. She was 19th out of 127 (15th percentile for her age group), and she could have been much faster if she wasn't pacing me.

I need to be in much better shape and do more 21+ k runs during training. We maybe only had one or two 21+ k runs during the summer. My planned 24k run turned into a 14k run. It showed. Despite the ease of running downhill, my legs were getting tired by 8k, and I had to take walk breaks by about 12k.

My marathoning days may be behind me. It was hard enough doing this half. I can't imagine doing the full. And I hurt a lot afterwards. My left ankle hurts, my right knee hurts, and of course my quads hurt.

The thin air at the start of the race may have been a factor. I seemed to be breathing abnormally hard. I seemed to settle into it later in the race, but by then my legs were talking to me.

We planned for the temperature well. It was quite cool at the top. We had large garbage bags that we wore for the first kilometer or so. We had sweatshirts that we put onto the bag check bag, so those helped. The Revel organizers provided mylar blankets ("space blankets") at the start of the run. I don't think I saw any at the finish, because it was warm enough. We were provided string gloves which we wore for the first half of the race. We had brought our own, but it was nice that the Revel organizers had thought about us.

The one complaint I had about this run was that there was no beer at the finish, unlike almost every US race. Other Revel races do have beer and speaking with another runner who had run 30+ Revel races, this is the only one without a beer tent. Apparently, dealing with the insane Utah laws is the problem.

We stayed at the MainStay Suites hotel in the Midvale part of Salt Lake City. It was very reasonably priced, had a kitchenette in which we cooked our pre-race dinner, and was just 600 m. from the shuttles to get us to the start of the race. It was rated 2 stars, but Kelly and I gave it 5 stars as a great runner hotel for this race.

When it comes to liquor laws, Utah is a bit backwards. Twice we were asked to show our passports in order to buy a bottle of wine, or order a beer, to verify that we were over 21!

Because we boarded the bus to the start line at 5 AM, started the race at 6:30, and were finished the race before 8:30.AM, we had the rest of the day for touring around.

We drove to Park City, had a very good lunch at Park City Brewing, and then did a short drive to to the Olympic village, where we saw aerial skiers doing tricks into the jumping pool. There were lots of other activities we could have done there if we had more time, including ziplinìng. From there we went to historic Park City and had a nice lunch at the Top of Main brew pub.

After a short nap, we did a hike towards "The Living Room" to see the sun set. We hiked uphill for over 40 minutes before we finally stopped to take in the sunset. We walked 1.36 km uphill before turning around. Hindsight 20/20, we should have only hiked 200 m up. The sun set would have been pretty much the same, and it would have been much easier on our already-hurting quads!

Another adventure we did before the race was to see the "pink lake" at the very north end of Stansbury Island. (From Salt Lake City, take i-80 West for 36 miles , then take Exit 84 towards Grantsville, SR-138. After 0.3 miles, turn left onto Salt Rd. towards Grantsville, Stansbury Island. You'll continue up this road for about 15 miles until you reach the northern point of the island. The first 4 miles of the road is paved, but the remaining 9 miles are along dirt and gravel road. The road is well-graded for the most part and a 4wd vehicle is not required. You'll find a few 'private property' signs posted along the route. The road itself is public although most of the land. surrounding it is private property.)

All-in-all, it was an amazing experience – one we would absolutely do again!