Wow! It has been months since I have written an update. My 50 miler has come and gone and I’ll summarize that another time. This post is actually a recap of the Sandia Crest Marathon. http://runsandiacrest.com/
It has become a tradition for my two wonderful friends and me to take a girls’ trip to celebrate two of our birthdays in September; mine and Karen’s. What better way is there to celebrate than with a lovely runner girl trip?! This trip was a truly special one, because 1. I turned 50 on 9/10 and 2. Karen was running her very first marathon! I do need to take a pause here and thank all three of our wonderfully supportive husbands who encourage us to enjoy these experiences with each other. They all doggy sit and hold down the forts while we are off having fun.
Sharla, Karen and I run together often. On our last two runner girl trips, Sharla and I ran the full marathon while Karen opted for the half. Well, I think we finally convinced her that running a full marathon would be a great idea! The first thing we had to do was find a good one that fit into everyone’s schedule.
I saw a new race pop up on my Facebook feed one day and given that all three of us love downhill races and this one was in Albequerque (drivable from Lubbock), we decided it would be the perfect first full for Karen! So, we all registered for the Sandia Crest MARATHON! I found a discount code on the FB page and saved a little on my registration. We booked an AirBnB and were all set. Karen trained hard in the hot summer days and used the same training plan I used for my first full. It was one in the back of Marathoning for Mortals by John Bingham.
Race weekend arrived and we were on our adventure! We drove to ABQ Thursday night and checked in to our AirBnB. It was fantastic! Three bedrooms, two baths and a huge amount of space in a hip neighborhood called Nob Hill. The house was full of really interesting artwork too. We hit the jackpot.
Starving, we decided to carb load immediately and found a great Italian restaurant called M’Tucci’s. My birthday was the week before, but we didn’t get to go out to celebrate, so we did a little celebrating at this dinner. The Italian Twinkie was to die for!
Friday morning, we drove the course and enjoyed the lovely views on Sandia mountain. It was going to be a beautiful race!
We then drove to packet pick up after that. There was no expo, just a packet pick up at a local running store. We took a moment to buy some last minute fuel and snapped a few pics. We also got to meet Troy, the race director. I had my Revel Big Cottonwood shirt on and thought he might be irritated seeing that, but as it turned out, he was inspired by his experience at the Revel Mt. Charleston Marathon and that’s what prompted him to organize this inaugural race.
There were a few striking similarities between this race and the Revel races. The first and most obvious was that this was a downhill course (5000 ft. descent). The next was getting a nice hat along with our race shirt. I loved the hat, but the cotton shirt was a little plain and had Sandia Crest Marathon in small lettering on the back. If you weren’t looking for it, you would miss it. The race packet had a few fliers and coupons in it and in another similarity to Revel it included a pair of throwaway gloves and a mylar blanket.
We took a trip to Whole Foods and picked up a few things, laid out our race attire, and turned in early.
My 3:45 a.m. alarm interrupted a good night’s sleep. Our place was about 15 minutes from where the buses were being loaded, so we had a bit more time getting ready. Bus loading was from 4:00-5:30 a.m. We pulled into the parking lot of the Manzano Mesa Community Center and there were quite a few school buses ready to be taken over by a bunch of anxious runners. We all hit the port-a-pots and loaded the bus. Our bus driver got a little lost on the way to the mountain, but luckily someone on the bus was from the area and set her straight before we got too far down the road.
At the start, there were several port-a-pots and lots of energetic music playing. We were able to keep our gear bags with us until about 15 minutes before the start. The sunrise was beautiful and we found plenty of very nice people who were willing to snap pics for us. Runners are such friendly people!
We lined up at the starting line, there was a 10 second countdown and we were off. No National Anthem was sung and I said this as we started, so a very kind gentleman who was running in front of us started singing The Star Spangled Banner. It made us all laugh.
The course was a nice steep downhill slope at the beginning so we were flying and hit some pretty good paces. The sun was rising, and we could see the beautiful trees and distant landscape. It was stunning!
Because of a mixup, there were too many port-a-pots ordered, so fortunately for the runners, there were some at EVERY MILE! That was awesome!
We hit the halfway point and gone were the trees, gone was the downhill and gone was our momentum. But, we persevered and ticked off mile after mile until we finally reached the finish line! The three of us grabbed hands and crossed together! (I don’t have a picture of this, because the photographer stopped taking photos at 11:45. Bummer!)
The finish line fare consisted of donuts, chocolate milk and protein bars. I splurged and had a donut! It was delicious.
We drove back to our AirBnB, cleaned up, then headed out for some post race pizza! The best thing to do was to keep moving, so we walked down the street to Il Vicino and had some amazing pizza. Then we walked a little further down the street to Frost and had some tasty gelato for dessert. The presentation in the gelato cases was just beautiful.
We took it easy for the rest of the evening and made some delicious banana pancakes for dinner.
The next morning, we slept in and packed up our things. And just like that, our time in Albuquerque came to an end and we drove home.
But, one of us was returning home a changed woman. Karen was now a MARATHONER!
My thoughts…
I enjoyed the Sandia Crest inaugural marathon. I may run it again sometime. I’m working on the 50 states, and I already have two races in New Mexico, but we’ll see what happens next year.
Here’s a breakdown of the race:
Course: Beautiful and pretty much downhill for the first 11 miles, then there is no shade at all and a lot more hills as you run on historic Route 66. Perhaps they could shift the course to the other side of the road, there seemed to be more shade there.
Crowd Support: Not a lot of spectators were along the course, but the people at the aid stations were very cheerful and supportive.
Aid Stations: Lots of porta-Johns along the course, but aid stations were about 2.5 miles apart and really needed to be every mile at least for the last 6 miles (they are changing this for next year). Each station had Tailwind and water. Mile 22 had otter pops!
Race Photos: Free race pics, however the photographer must have quit before noon, because there were no finisher photos after 11:45.
Starting Area: Plenty of porta-Johns and lots of pumped up music plus a beautiful sunrise. No national anthem to start. School buses were used to transport us up the mountain. If you paid for the VIP experience, you got to ride in a coach bus and leave a little later than the regular group.
Finish Area: Plenty of donuts, Probars and chocolate milk were available at the finish. There were several pools of ice water to soak your feet! There were also areas to take pictures and places to sit down. One kind of annoying thing was a man with a laptop computer ran over and shoved the screen in our faces as we were getting our medals. I appreciate that he wanted to give us our finishing time right away, but it just felt pushy and he got in the way of picture taking and celebrating.
Race organization: Troy did a great job. Email communication before the race was good, results were up fast, packet pickup was smooth. Sure, there need to be a few tweaks for next year, but I’d say this race was all in all a successful one.
Thanks for reading!
Next up: 50 mile race recap!
debrunsto50 
Great race recap, totally bummed that it seems the photographer was done before racers were finished. Looks like a fun trip was had though!
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Awesome! Good luck to you!!!
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Loved the race recap! You have a very nice writing style! Not sure I’d want a doughnut after a race, but glad you enjoyed it! 😎
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Thanks for reading! Since I didn’t run very hard this race, a donut tasted great. 😀
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You had to have it….it was “birthday cake.” haha
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She was required to have it; it was her birthday and the donut was “birthday cake”. lol
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Lol! That’s funny! The fact you ladies could joke around after 26.2 miles is awesome! Maybe I’ll have to put a doughnut in my car and see if I can eat it after I finish MY marathon!
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This marathon was number 26 for me. Love this distance! Which marathon are you training for?
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LA Marathon on March 24, 2019. 1st one! I’ve done 6 half-marathons and gotten comfortable with that distance, so it’s time to stretch!
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