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This year was the first year Vacation Races hosted a half marathon outside Glacier National Park. They host half marathons just outside national parks across the country, constantly adding new venues to their lineup.
A few years ago I ran the Great Smoky Mountains half and had a great time, so when I realized that they had a race on my 40th birthday, in a location we could easily get to, I signed up for it. We were already planning on being in the Utah/Idaho area for family reunions, so the opportunity to visit Glacier National Park, which we’d never been to, made adding it to our itinerary a no-brainer.
Finding a race that was held on my 40th birthday was significant because it marked the completion of my 40 by 40 goal. I’ve talked a bit about it in the past, and I’ll do a post soon recapping what I did, but if you’re new here, here’s the short version: I set a goal to complete 40 races between my 38th and 40th birthdays. Because I’m an overachiever, I actually completed 50 races in that two year time span, with this half marathon being the 50th race.
Vacation Races had a campground set up for those participants who wanted to camp out at the Indian Days Campground in Browning, MT. When I ran the Great Smoky half a few years ago they didn’t have a race campground, but I think it’s a nice addition. Last time everyone had to wake up super early to drop me off at the shuttle, but this time I was able to leave everyone asleep and walk from where our RV was parked to the shuttle pickup line.
We were shuttled by a fleet of school buses from the campground to the start line about 20 minutes away. The staging area quickly filled up with runners and walkers lined up to use the port-a-potties.
Others grabbed a white trash bag off the rolls laying on a table and wrote their bib number on it with a sharpie. We used these as our gear bags for all the layers we had to remove before the race started.
I think temps were in the 40s as we waited for the race to start, though it warmed up to the 50s once the sun came up. I knew it would be colder in the mountains, but I will admit I wasn’t expecting the temps to be quite so cold. On the plus side, the wind we’d been experiencing in the days leading up to the race had died down and the skies were clear. It was a beautiful day.
The staging area was a bit cramped, so staying in our waves didn’t work out quite as they’d planned, but I didn’t get stuck behind walkers, so I wasn’t too concerned. There’s always hiccups the first year a race is run, but this was really the only issue I noticed.
This race felt a lot more crowded than the last Vacation Races half I ran, so out of curiosity I compared the number of finishers in both races. The Great Smoky half in 2014 (its first year) had 658 finishers (in 2016 there were 1886 finishers). The inaugural running of the Glacier half had 1785 finishers. So yes, I wasn’t wrong when I told my sister I thought this race was bigger 🙂
I’ll say it right off: this was a challenging race.
The first five miles sucked, the middle four were good, and the last four were rough.
The first mile or so was flattish, leaning to a slight uphill, with some rolling hills thrown in for variety.
Then we turned onto Rt 49 and started climbing, relentlessly climbing, until mile 5. We only gained 900 feet in altitude (which doesn’t sound like much, but it is), but it was never-ending.
We finally hit the summit and started an equally relentless descent for the next four-ish miles.
Between miles 9 and 10 the course leveled out, with a decent climb between mile 10 and 10.5 and some rolling hills mixed in until the finish line.
How I ran the race
I ran the first mile or so until we hit the relentless ascent. Then I alternated running and walking until I reached the summit. I ran several hilly races this spring as preparation for this race, but it’s really hard to prepare adequately for 5 miles of hill climbing. I was able to get some good photos while walking though.
I tried to keep my pace up while climbing, but I’d still completed those first five miles more slowly than I’d hoped. Once I hit the descent, I picked up my pace and ran hard, allowing the momentum to carry me along and help me make up some of the lost time. The only problem was that I ran those downhill miles a little harder than I should have after the hard ascent and I paid the price during the last portion of the race.
Momentum helped me descend at a faster pace than I can normally maintain, but once the road flattened out I was on my own again. By that time my legs were so tired I just could not keep my pace up.
As I ran the descent I’d been doing mental math and I realized that if I kept my pace up, I could beat my current <nearly 9 year old> half marathon PR of 2:29:46. I even had a couple extra minutes of wiggle room that would allow me to slow down once I hit the last hill that I knew was still to come.
In the end, that wiggle room wasn’t quite enough to see me through the amount of walking I had to do in the last three miles. I was just too tired to run those last miles and had to stop and walk more times than I wanted to. I missed beating my PR by just over a minute.
My thoughts on how I did
Honestly, I’m only a teeny bit disappointed about missing that PR. I always knew it would be a long shot for several reasons:
- I’m not getting any younger
- The elevation difference (about 600 feet at home, 5000 to 6000 feet during the race)
- The challenging course
- Cutting back on my training because of the plantar fasciitis in my feet
- Tapering early because of traveling. I had planned on running while we traveled, but there just wasn’t time.
The fact that I came so close to hitting that PR is very encouraging. I may be getting older, but that doesn’t mean I have to get slower. Being smarter with my training and being in better shape and health (2008 was in my pre-gluten free days) meant that even though this course was significantly more challenging than the course I PR’d on in 2008, I was able to come very close to setting a new PR.
2:30:54 (2017) on a challenging, hilly course versus 2:29:46 (2008) on a course that was all downhill or flat, specifically chosen because I knew I could get a good time on it. Yeah, I’m quite pleased with my time and my effort.
While I was tired and had sore muscles at the end of the race, I didn’t get injured, and thanks to liberal use of moleskin and Bodyglide I didn’t even get any blisters on my feet. The altitude didn’t bother me, but I discovered I’m quite allergic to aspen seed. Immediately after the race and while we were in Canada I was sneezing my head off and had significant sinus congestion. I didn’t notice any fluff floating around after the race, but when we went to Waterton Lakes in Canada the next day we saw tons of it. I commented to a local in Canada about all the white stuff floating around, and she said it was aspen seed. I thought it was cottonwood fluff, but apparently not.
Thoughts on the race
Would I do this race again? Yes, if I’d trained for it. I would want to incorporate more hill work than I did this year to build my stamina and endurance for that brutal ascent.
While this was one of the most challenging races I’ve run, it was also one of the most beautiful. The scenery around Glacier National Park is not to be missed, and provided a distraction as we climbed and climbed. And climbed some more. I didn’t take any pictures on the way down because I was focusing on running, but as I reveled in the beauty all around us I saw and heard a small waterfall trickling down the rocks on the side of the road. I was glad I wasn’t listening to music since I wouldn’t have heard the water and would have missed the waterfall completely.
The race was run on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, which is adjacent to Glacier National Park. The Blackfeet Nation graciously allowed us to use their campground and provided men to patrol the race course.
The men were on four wheelers patrolling up and down the road as we ran, but it wasn’t until I saw the shotgun strapped to the back of one of them that I realized just why they were there. They were there to keep us safe from bears. I didn’t see any bears, but some of the runners around me said they saw one down in a ravine as we were walking. I looked, but didn’t see it, so kept going rather than slow my time even more.
Vacation Races is big on being environmentally conscious, so they don’t hand out goody bags (bring your own bag to collect your stuff), they have recycling and composting bins set out, and they are cup free. That means no paper cups to be discarded on the roadway, as well as less volunteer time filling, handing out, and cleaning up those cups. Instead, they encourage people to bring their own water bottle or to carry a hydrapouch (you add it to your cart at no extra charge when registering) that you fill at the aid stations, then tuck back in your belt or waistband.
I carried a water bottle full of Nuun in a waist pack and tucked my hydrapouch under the strap to fill with water. They offered an electrolyte drink as well as water, but I wasn’t familiar with it and didn’t want to risk intestinal issues by trying it for the first time during the race.
Will I run other races put on by Vacation Races? Definitely. In fact, I’m already signed up for the Shenandoah half in September. I won’t be racing to get a PR, but will just be going to complete it. I need to let my feet heal and spend more time on my businesses, so I won’t be doing much training between now and then. I signed up for the race months ago though, and while they have a very flexible deferment/cancellation policy, I decided to do the race anyway. I’ve run/walked a half marathon with no training at all (unintentionally- it was advertised as walker friendly but I was the only one walking so I ran as much as I could in an effort to finish faster) and survived to tell the tale, so I know I can do this race with minimal training. It’s hilly, so I’ll walk the ascents and run the descents.
Vacation Races also encourages runners to explore the national park near each half marathon and has certain hikes designated that, if completed, will give the person a discount on a future race registration. We didn’t participate in that this time (the little boys weren’t up for too much more hiking by that point), but we did when I ran the Great Smoky half.
Most of races Vacation Races hosts are in the west, but they are slowly adding races in the east as well. If one is close to you, or you have the ability to travel to one, I would definitely encourage you to do so. They are a fun experience and I’d love to run more of them if I have the time. Have you run one of their half marathons?
