I'm Going For a Run: Mammoth Half Marathon- Race Recap

June 22, 2014

Starting elevation: ~9,000 ft at Horseshoe Lake

Finishing elevation: ~7,800 ft on Old Mammoth Road

Training elevation (elevation of my home town): 768 ft

The course:

The elevation:

(Course map and elevation map from www.mammothhalfmarathon.com)

The decision to sign up for the Mammoth Half Marathon was and easy one to make. We've been coming to Mammoth almost every year since I can remember and I absolutely love it here.

Last year was the inaugural year of this particular race and the timing didn't work out for us to participate, but it made it to the list of races I wanted to run in and after I made the goal to run 14 half marathons in 2014, I made sure to keep my eye open for registration to open.

The extra incentive to register for Mammoth was "The Challenge", or completing both the San Diego Half Marathon in March and the Mammoth Half Marathon in June. Done and done! Not only did it satisfy two of the fourteen races, but it also came with an extra medal. Bling bling!

We decided that in order for us to go from under 1,000 feet in elevation to between 7,000 to 9,000 feet we would need to come up a few days beforehand to attempt to get used to the elevation and the other elements of being in a new place for a race.

This also meant extra activities before the race including shopping, hiking, horseback riding and eating:

And of course carbing up before the race. I'm pretty sure I don't do this correctly.

We started the race at 7:30am at Horseshoe Lake. It was a little chilly and breezy, but not horrible. It helped that we were given heatsheets at the start since we arrived by shuttle just about an hour before the start.

The course was absolutely breathtaking. Although we're not considered fast runners, we are runners and we knew from the beginning that this was going to be a course to look forward to, appreciate and remember forever. My sister and I had already agreed to taking our time on this course due to the elevation and just overall to enjoy ourselves. It worked wonderfully and I couldn't have asked for a better race or a better race partner.

It was not a PR setting course by any means, but it also was not our slowest time and I had set a personal goal to finish before 3:15:00. We decided to use the same intervals as our last half marathon (30:1:30- running 30 seconds and walking a minute and a half) however we changed it up a bit during the downhill to 2:2 intervals. We walked more during the second half due to the uphill parts of the course, but we finished in 3:14:51, beating my goal by 9 seconds.

The race may not have been a fast one for us, but it was one that went by the fastest. Due to the beautiful views, the amazing support of our families, the wonderful volunteers along the course and the spectators and fellow runners this race will be one of the top races I will probably ever run.

I am attempting to improve on my race recaps, however I tend to do better by posting pictures of the course. So, here is a mile by mile breakdown of the Mammoth Half Marathon:

Mile 1: