You know you’re a crazy person when you sign up for a race called “Crack of Dawn.”
Yet that’s exactly the race I found myself running this weekend: the Crack of Dawn 8K, an all-downhill road race starting at 6 AM.
I regretted this decision slightly when my alarm went off at 4:00 on Saturday morning.
Buuut it was all good after that. It depends on the day, of course, but I’m pretty good at early wake-ups. I brewed myself some French press coffee, laced up my sneaks, and even ran the dishwasher before leaving the house at 4:30. That’s true adulthood right there.
This race was in Millcreek Canyon in Salt Lake, home to one of my favorite running trails, Pipeline. But this wasn’t a trail race; it started at the top of the canyon road and ran all the way down, finishing in the parking lot at the bottom.
Downhill races seem to be big here in Utah, where we have lots of canyons that you can run down (or up!) for miles. They even have down-canyon marathons and half marathons! I’ve avoided them because they seem like a bad idea with my history of knee injury. But naturally, since I made it my goal not to injure myself this year, it seemed like a great time to try one out. Right. My friend Jacquey convinced me to sign up… but to be fair, it didn’t take too much convincing.
…
