Tour de Run

My "summer of racing" kept going this weekend at the Tour de Run, a cycling-inspired stage race directed by Nate Houle. Stage 1 was Friday at 7:30pm, Stage 2 was Saturday at 7am, and Stage 3 was Saturday at high-noon. This was a really cool concept and I hope it continues to grow. Here are my stage-by-stage reports...

Stage 1, 5K - 15:40, 2nd place
I took it out quick, Josh McCabe and Chris Rushing followed close. Hit the mile in 4:52 and Chris dropped back by 1.5 miles. It was down to Josh and I, which it what we probably both expected. The middle portion of the course was a windy trail through a forested area and around a pond. A fun course (reminded me of Thanksgiving Point). We ran the second mile in5:00. The third mile has a short uphill stretch. We were running side by side through there, but Josh pulled ahead in the last quarter-mile and won by 0.8 seconds. Third mile was 5:08 and then the last tenth was 39 which seems kind of wrong, but maybe one of the other miles was short. Doesn't matter, this is racing, not time trialing.

Stage 2, 10K - 32:42, 2nd place
The "hill" stage. I took it out a bit more conservative (10:36 at 2 miles) and then Josh absolutely crushed me on the uphill. I ran 5:56 for that mile, and probably fell 20 seconds back. Mile 4 was back downhill (5:02) and then I closed the gap a bit over the last two miles (5:00, 5:02, and 64 for the last 0.2) but Josh won the stage by 14 seconds.

Stage 3, 4.32 miles - 22:43, 1st place
Ran the first two miles in 5:06, 4:59 and I could tell I wasn't going to get 14 seconds back on Josh because he was stuck right on my shoulder and running strong. So I asked him if he was planning to run Draper 5K and Des News 10K. We agreed that since that was the plan for both of us, we weren't going to kill ourselves today and kind of cruised the next two miles (5:25, 5:37!) and then I pulled away a bit in the last 1/3rd (1:36) and won by 3 seconds. I think after three races, my uniform smelled so wretched that Josh was happy to let me move away a little bit.

I ended up second place overall by ~10 seconds. Chris Rushing was third, Karl Siebach was 4th, and Kevin was 5th. On the women's side, Allie won by a landslide! In the team competition, Smores and Friends (Allie, James, Kevin, and I) won and were rewarded with a gigantic basket of Kneaders goodies.
This was a fun, well-organized event. I know there were a lot of races this weekend (with a lot more prize $) but I'm really glad I chose Tour de Run. There is something to be said about racing instead of just time-trialing and I think Nate Houle has created a unique event... I hope it gets some traction and more people do this in the future. Overall the turnout was somewhat small, but everyone there seemed to love it. All 3 races were loop-type courses that started and finished at Lone Peak HS. They were fun and challenging (and in the case of the 10K, somewhat brutal). But I'm growing tired of bus rides and downhill dashes (great attitude with the Des News 10K coming up, right?) so this was a nice change from what kind of races we typically have in Utah. Lots of great prizes too. It was good racing against Josh, he's had my number over the last month but we've pushed each other, and I enjoy that kind of competition.

Andrea took lots of photos.

Here's a few...