Leading Ladies Race Ratings...

Ratings...
Registration & Process Fee: $75.88

Overall Race Rating (weighted): 4.3/5.0
Average Calculated Rating: 4.3/5.0
~ I would agree with the average. This was a really good race on a beautiful course with a lot of fun people. Great goodies pre and post race.

Race Director: Let's place race director...
~ First, nobody could replace the presence of the Leading Ladies Marathon race director. But, maybe we can make some suggestions. The start-- pull it back a little or have it wrap a different way. Currently, you jump right to an uphill without warm up. This is especially hard when you're already freezing. I know we don't want to congest the roads all day, but 4am meet to start at 6:30? Yikes! Not much we can do about that, except to push the start out a half hour or so. The heat shouldn't be a problem, since the sun is hidden by the mountains for the first few hours of daylight.

Organization: 4.5/5.0
~ This race is VERY organized. The runners received update emails during the weeks as we approached the race. Also, it's a small race, and the website is kept very simply without excluding any of the important point. There were 2 meeting points to catch the bus and they both seemed to go off without a hitch. There was a good amount of water stops that also had lots of snacks! Downside? We had to meet at 4 am to get the bus to the 6:30 start. It was SO cold for the first 2.5 hours of the race.

Course: 4.5/5.0
~ Great course. Running down the winding, scenic, mountain roads. Mostly rolling hills then a gently sloping downhill. My quads aren't thankful, but it doesn't hurt your time! Only part that I wasn't a fan of was an immediate uphill at the start without a warm up! This is especially bad since we were already freezing prior to the start. Also, the uphills are on these loose rock type things. They're a little like running in sand- every step you took you went back just a little.

Spectators: 3.8/5.0
~ I felt like the spectators that were there were very genuine. Everybody seemed very excited for the race! There wasn't a TON of room for spectators since we run along a major road, but whenever they could they were there.

Pace Group: /5.0

~ DNE

Runner/Corrals: 5.0/5.0
~ No Corrals, obviously, but the runners are EXCEPTIONALLY nice. I don't know if it's just because we're all women but I've never seen such a chatty bunch! Put 100 strangers on a bus and you wouldn't expect immediate chatter like that.

Expo: 4.0/5.0
~ I wasn't able to attend the actual expo, but it had a lot of cool things. There were some workshops and I heard from another Maniac that there were some pretty cool booths there as well.

Swag: 4.0/5.0

~Everything was very "Girls Power-esque" for this race, as it should be! The Tshirt? A red shirt with this years signature emblem: a Leopard Purse with "It's In The Bag" written on it. Definitely a cute idea and I had heard that the shirts last year weren't great. However, the dark brown and black on the dark red made it kind of hard to see. Would have been REALLY cute (and easier to read) if it were on a pale pink.

~Medals: Very different and cute. Same signature leopard purse with "Its in the bag" written across it. Very nice!

~ As soon as you were finished you were handed a rose with your medal.

~ Goodie Bag: There was some seriously cool stuff here! They had a little leopard colored box with chocolates inside. They also gave us 3 inspiration cards with quotes about running and runners on the cover.

~ Winners? Winners got BLING! Neckalces, bracelets, and earrings were the award for winners. Age group award? Leopard colored bags with inspiration stones inside. Mine said "Friends." Everybody together now... "AWWW."

Leading Ladies Marathon- Post Race Thoughts

Guinea Pig Report:
Sorry, no dice everybody! Let's take a look at what I've consumed over the past week...
~ 3 bottles of Pickle Juice (2 the days before the race and 1 right before)
~ 2 bottles of coconut juice (1 the day before, one the morning of the race)
~ 3 Bananas (1 the night before, 2 the morning of)
~ Packet of sports beans and 4 GUs
~ Gatorade/Water throughout the race
~ 1 Packet of (ick)... Mustard (yes, I gaged)

All those combined should have filled me with potassium, magnesium, sodium, and electrolytes. How could I possibly get cramps, right? Well sorry to report, but between miles 23 and 24 I had horrible leg cramps and had to walk most of the last 2 miles. Prior I was averaging an 8:15 pace and felt great. Mid mile for my 24th, they just hit. So the search continues... how to stop these cramps??? Well that's a mystery to remain unsolved... let's talk about the race.

Pre-Race: Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to go to the expo because I got in so late. But, the expo was supposed to be good and designed very much around women (good, since it was an all women race). They had a few workshops set up for writing and a couple of speakers. The whole event seemed to go off more as a social than a race-- kind of neat! I hadn't been feeling very well all week and the cold hadn't gone away by the night before the race, so I quickly got something to eat then went right to bed.

Race Day: This race starts out 26.2 miles out-- we get bussed out to the start and then run back to the finish. All the way up to the start there was a LOT of excitement a even more chatter. It was definitely unusual to have only women at a start. The race director, Elaine, got on the bus to wish us off on our trip. I thought that was very sweet and added to the excitement. The start was FREEZING!!! We all ran out, used the port-a-johns then quickly ran back ON to the bus to get warm again. The start was about 4000 ft higher than the finish and significantly colder. This was a nice change from the hot/humid weather we've had in Cinci, but wow it was a shock to the body.

The Course: The race went off with a simple "on your mark, get set, go!" No big speeches by people we don't want to hear from keeping us out in the cold unnecessarily-- thank you organizers!!! You immediately start racing up a good sized hill on loose stones. What a way to get warm. You immediately started back down just as steep of a hill. The hills continued to roll for several miles. My fingers were blue and I could barely move them to get water. If you're looking for a cooler race, you'll love this one! You not only start in the cold before sunrise, but even when the sun does come up, the mountains around you are so high they block it out until your last few miles.

Around mile 11 there is another good size uphill on loose stones again. This hill wound for a little over a mile, then you turned a cone and ran it backward. The rest of the course was constant turning around mountains on a gently sloping downhill.

Post Race: Upon finishing the race they give you a medal and a rose. They have a line of people waiting to walk with the runner as long as you need until you can stop to have them take your chip off. I wasn't very hungry but I was able to grab some really tasty fruit tarts and some water. Awards? WOAH! If you placed or completed some sort of marathon trifecta you received some fun runner jewelry. For the age groups (I got first in mine) they gave out awards to the top 3-- those engraved "inspiration stones" in a little leopard print bag with your age group and placing. Mine said "Friends" awwww....

Race Ratings to come!!!

Leading Ladies Marathon (#12)... Race RUNdown

This weekend I'll be completing my South Dakota Marathon- and guess what? It's all women!!!





Inspiration Points...
1. No boys allowed!!!!
2. This race is all downhill!!! They bus you out to the start at 6,000 ft and run to the bottom at 3,400 ft. FUN!
3. 9th State this year... I will get my 4th spinny star on the maniacs!!!
4. South Dakota Redemption!!! Scroll to the bottom to hear my SD running story from 10 YEARS ago! I will get you back South Dakota!

The RUNdown #12 Leading Ladies Marathon
When: Sunday August 16, 2009
Where: Spearfish, SD
Year Running: 5th!
2009 Expected Field: 107 Currently Signed up
Age group Expected: 7 Currently Signed up
2008 Field: 97
...Females: 97! DUH!!!
...Age Group: 4
2008 Avg. Finish Time: 4:46:04
Weather:
Ummmm... can we say IDEAL? Yes, yes we can! Upper 40's??? OMG I'm beyond excited! I haven't ran a marathon in the 40's or even 50's since... well, ever!!! All of my races have been super hot and I'm SURE are in some part a cause to my leg cramps.

If there were just a few showers through the race I would be VERY happy... Do you hear me mother nature??? If I have ideal weather conditions and make a PR I will plant a TREE!!!!











Course:
DOWNhill! It's supposed to be very fast and beautiful!
Some excerpts from Marathon Guide on the course...

~"This was, by far, the most beautiful course and one of the fastest courses I have run yet. Spearfish Canyon is not only breathtaking; it also has PR potential." (sounds like a plus)

~"I am not kidding when I say that the race runs entirely downhill - there are no flats to be found. There were points in the last eight miles where I thought I seriously wasn't going to be able to finish because of the pounding my legs and joints were taking" (Something to watch out for)

~Beautiful scenery the entire way; mostly downhill; great aid stations

... and I'm not just pulling out the "good" ratings. I didn't see a single bad one!

Race 411:
~Race Director, Elaine Doll-Dunn, is supposed to be amazing! Very inspiring and energetic. You very rarely hear people's ratings include comments about the director! I was shocked to see just HOW many people were raving about her.
~Water Stops- I've seen mixed reviews on the water stops. Some say they're fantastic and some say they're scanty. I will check it out this weekend and report back!
~This is a smaller, quieter marathon so the spectators will be far and few between. In this case, I'm ok with that! If you read the post on Hatfield-McCoy, I really enjoyed the quiet among the beautiful scenic view! This race is supposed to have amazing scenery.

Race Plan:
I've been feeling a little under the weather, but hopefully that clears up real fast!!! If the weather stays as perfect as it looks now I'm going to try for a hard race. We'll see how that goes! Of course I'll be bringing my many leg cramp remedies with me and testing them out. I will report back asap.

South Dakota... 1999:
10 years ago I was in 8th grade... yikes! I really don't like that I can remember 10 years ago, but that's a whole other story. Alright, in 8th grade I went on a Paavo running camp. Don't know what paavo is? It's an older running method that involves putting in a LOT of miles-- even for high school kids. In my experience it burns people out, but hey! it works for some.

The camp I went to was Paavo West-- two weeks of traveling by 15 passenger vans from IL out to WY then back, stopping 3 times a day to run... and by run, I mean run FAR! When we got to SD our mid day run was a 10 miler in the middle of summer, in 90-something degree heat with 100% humidity on black top. Who thinks this is a bad idea?? I DO!!!! About halfway we got to Mt. Rushmore, which is the last thing I remember seeing before waking up in a hospital. Something like 5 of us went to the hospital that day with heat exhaustion.

My goal? Get BACK at Mt. Rushmore!!! I'm 10 years stronger and I'm determined to have a much improved performance from my last visit! Bring it South Dakota!!!