The race was the second annual Running of the Leopards race. Click on the map to see the route--it began just outside Hogle Zoo (at the mouth of Emigration Canyon) and ended at East High School, which is famous for being (1) the school location for the High School Musical movies and (2) my wife's alma mater--GO LEOPARDS!Oddly enough, neither my wife nor the High School Musical cast participated in the race.
But hundreds of others did. It was really fun to see the huge crowd of people out there on a rather chilly "Spring" morning. Are you sure it's Spring??? Maybe I should have waited until April to do my first race!
Actually, I had a blast! My goal was simply to finish the race without stopping to rest/walk. And I did it! Well, I did stop for just a moment to tie an evil shoelace, but now I know: next time, double knots!
My time was just under 30 minutes, which is a full 10 minutes faster than any of my trainings have been! My guess is that's because almost the entire route was downhill, and the tiny stretch that was uphill was VERY mild! But hey, I'll take it! It makes me sound faster than I really am!
Maybe even fast enough to justify my use of the word "race" as a verb someday.
Someday.
MOJ
Update: When they posted the official race times on the USA Track and Field website, mine was posted as 26:30. Now, I know that is not accurate. The race clock AND my watch both said 29:30. They're just being overly generous (not likely), or compensating for crowd-staggered start times (more likely), or doing some other mathematical voodoo for unknown reasons (even more likely), because I certainly wasn't that fast!