Below is an email to my running friends with a race report about the Inaugural Sandpoint Half-marathon in Sandpoint Idaho. It was a pretty course, well-organized and the people were just wonderful. Very nice race and a nice addition to the running schedule.
Howdy everybody!
Numbers first, I guess. I turned a 1:47:31 for the half which placed 4th in my age group, 52nd overall at the Sandpoint Half. While it's a minute per mile slower than I ran 5 years ago, it's still really nice to be able to step to the line and race. I didn't realize how much I missed racing.
So the course - it's advertised as the scenic half and it lives up to that name. The course takes off from the beach in the city center and, after a couple of left turns takes you out the long bridge across the lake. It was a little tight before you get to the bridge because they were doing some construction on the trail that connected to the bridge. It's not paved at the moment but was relatively flat with decent footing - no worse than running a good gravel road.
Once you pick up the bridge, it's a straight flat shot for a couple of miles. If you want to know where you stand, this is your chance to find out. Personally, I was sightseeing and looking for someone to draft behind. Fat chance though I had a crowd right behind me.
Across the bridge and up the trail next to Hwy 95, the route follows the trail generally uphill (though not very steeply). One thing I hadn't thought about was that the lake is naturally at the bottom of a bowl. To run an out and back means that you will have an uphill. It just didn't occur to me until mile 3 when we started our baby climb. It's small rollers with one decent hill at mile 4.5, a left turn at Sagle Rd, another half mile to the turnaround - which was really well done - the race organizers used a parking lot to run us around a parking lot so we didn't have to do a screaming U-turn (I hate those).
6.5 miles back the way you came and, voila, it's time to kick. Unfortunately, I had to kick. Someone was catching me from behind on the finish. Terribly rude of them but as I've told the kids, kicking won't kill you. It just hurts like heck.
16 roadkill on the final 5 miles without getting passed, so pacing was good. It was windy on the way out so I ran fairly conservatively to the turnaround. I was sub-8 on the way back and felt in control until about Mile 11. Then it was time to be stubborn and hang on. Gratifying.
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