Well, the blizzard was a bust, which was a very good thing for the race, if not for our snowpack/drought conditions! I did wake up to an inch or so of fresh snow this morning, with some ice underneath, but it was mostly gone by race time. Conditions on the course were pretty good, mostly just a little wet with occasional snow/slush.
It was pretty cold at the start, so I huddled in my car as long as I could before meeting up with a friend from my online running group. It was so awesome to have someone to run with! The first six miles or so absolutely flew by, just chatting away. It was actually pretty warm once we got running, but I was lucky enough to have a friend come and cheer for me, so I was able to toss a couple of layers to her as we ran by. My legs felt pretty good until after 10 miles (which was the longest training run I did, so it totally makes sense) and then they started fading. I told my friend to go on around 11 since I could tell I was holding her back. The really rough part was at mile 12.25ish when the course comes off the trail and goes up an overpass across the interstate over to the finish line. I had to walk most of the hill up the overpass but was able to pick it back up into the finish line.
I finished with an official time of 2:14:24 (not chip-timed, actually closer to 2:13), which I'm very happy with. I did this same race last year in 2:20ish with some GI issues so it was probably about the same. I'm not back to where I was before my surgery, but at least I'm back to where I was last year at this time!
