The Color Half Marathon and Wknd Recap.

Hey y’all! Yes I said ya’ll…in true Texan fashion. Hope you are having a great Monday!

This past weekend I ran The Color Half Marathon out in Cedar Hill, TX! It was a tough day of hill / mountain climbing in the heat but…we made it!

Let’s recap the race as well as the weekend a little bit.

Saturday morning I ventured out for a nice and easy 7 miler in my hood. It was a gorgeous sunrise and some quiet / reflection time. I just love starting my weekend that way.

Followed by a trip to visit my friends over at Vitality Bowls…they made me an acai concoction with strawberries, bananas, organic granola and coconut milk.

That afternoon I got to see my long lost friend Aditi who actually lives in VA/DC area now but was in town for SMUs homecoming festivities! They really go all out on the tailgating. We had a good time catching up…I’ve known her (center) and the other girl Julie for over 13 years and counting.

Sunday morning I made the 30 mile trek out to Cedar Hill State Park for the race. Luckily it was an 8 am start so that gave me plenty of time to find the location and get my parking situated. What I loved about this race is that they were super prepared and even had a shuttle to take us to the start/finish line. The race was fairly small too and also had a 5k portion. Lots of folks brought their families and kiddos and since it was in a park decked out in their lawn chairs to do some spectating.

Going into this race I knew it may be hilly since it said so on the website but truly did not look at the elevation or anything. The race takes you through the park and around Joe Pool Lake which was quite beautiful to look at.

We continued going up and down a bunch of rolling hills and then some serious climbs that really took the wind out of a lot of people. Basically there was no spot in the race that was flat which was tiring but the sadistic side of me actually enjoyed it. (!) I just kept telling myself ‘what goes up must come down’…swallowed my pride and kept pushing. Having the color stations was fun too, although most of us chose not to run through them (okay…I will admit, I ran through ONE just for fun) so we could focus more on running. It was cool though and the volunteers were incredible. They kept us perfectly hydrated and even put ice in our water and electrolyte drinks.

My Garmin died halfway through the race as well so I tried to ignore all of that and just run by feel. Which honestly…I need to do more often. Its amazing how much better you run when you do that…and just kind of get out of your head. Your mind is so good at telling you to stop or to slow down…I am working on ignoring it when I need to push harder in a race.

Anyway, towards the end a couple of us on the course were talking and hoping that it would at least start to go downhill so we could all finish faster. Yeah…no dice. There was a nice big juicy hill right at the end which was a little discouraging but I just kept telling myself that this was great prep for the also hilly Tyler Rose Marathon which I’ll be running in 2 weeks.

2:01 finish…which for me, in the heat (high of 90) coupled with nonstop hills was a good run…and faster than my last half a few short weeks ago. Plus…small race so you know, the age group win was not so bad either.

2nd place in my age group on a tough, challenging, state park course. Oh yeah, I will take it!

I have a couple more half marys to tackle in the next few months as well as 2 full marathons – Tyler Rose in October then RnR Vegas in November. Gotta keep these legs nice and strong!

Oh & post run hammock/girl talk time…much needed.

How was your weekend? Did anyone tackle a tough race or a hilly long run?