Race Report: 2024 Grand Teton Half Marathon

A couple weeks ago I raced the Grand Teton Half Marathon, the first of the three local half marathons in Jackson Hole this year. I wasn’t planning on writing a race report for it because it was a quick and uneventful race, but since I didn’t get to write one for Ironman 70.3 Boulder, which I had to skip due to COVID, I might as well do it. I ran this race last year for the first time and it quickly became my favorite of the local half marathons, not just because it’s the most well-organized and has the most scenic route, but also because I unexpectedly podiumed last year, so of course I wanted to race it again. This year’s course was basically the same as in previous years, with the slight difference that the first couple of kilometers are now on the new pathway along Highway 22 instead of running on the shoulder of the road, a much welcome improvement. From there, the course rejoins the existing pathway in Wilson before heading back to Jackson over the pedestrian bridge over the Snake River, and then turning north on Spring Gulch Road, where you get to enjoy scenic views of the Teton Range all the way to the finish line at the Jackson Hole Golf Course. This final stretch of the race is on the road, but there’s not a lot of traffic and runners are given plenty of space from cars with traffic cones so it didn’t felt particularly dangerous. The total elevation gain for the course is about 100 m, most of it after the halfway point, once you turn onto Spring Gulch Road. See this course in Garmin Connect or Strava. On race morning I got up at 3:00 AM after a terrible night of sleep, which was convenient, since parking at the start line at the Stilson Lot closed at 5:00 AM and I didn’t want to take a shuttle. I arrived there shortly before parking closed, which left me with an hour and a half of waiting before the start of the race. At 6:00 AM I gave up on trying to get some more sleep in my car and figured it might be a better use of my time to stretch and do a thorough warm up---the weather was much better than last year, with clear skies and gorgeous views of the mountains, but it was freezing, at -1ºC, which made me wish I had worn warmer gear. I seeded myself conservatively towards the back of the blue wave, behind the 1:50 pacer; while it was cool to podium last year, I didn’t want to overdo it or risk an injury, given that I had a 70.3 planned for the following week. Rather than target a specific pace or time, my plan was to simply run at a pace that felt comfortable, treat it as a my long run for the week, and see where that landed me. To my surprise, when the race started at 6:32 AM, the pace that felt comfortable was... fast. I ran a pretty sluggish 6:54 min/km at Ironman 70.3 St. George last month and I’ve rarely run faster than 5:30 min/km in my training runs since then, so I really wasn’t expecting to run as fast as I did last year. I’m not sure if it was the race adrenaline or the fact that I was coming off of a recovery week in my training plan, but I was pretty surprised when I comfortably passed the 1:40 pacer a few minutes after starting the race, so I just kept going. I was holding a pace of 4:30 min/km through the first half of the race, although I knew I’d probably slow down a bit once I started going uphill on Spring Gulch Road. Crossing the Gros Ventre river, a few minutes away from the finish line. Sure enough, that was exactly what happened, and the last few kilometers were a real struggle, the kind where I start doing all kinds of mental math to bargain with myself, but at least the mountains were out and I enjoyed the view to distract myself from the suffering. At least I didn’t make the same mistake I made last year with my socks, and wore my normal Darn Tough running socks with my Hoka Rocket X 2 shoes, so I had no problems with chafing this time around (and the shoes may have contributed to my faster pace). The aid stations were pretty well stocked with Honey Stinger gels and waffles, bananas, and oranges, but I didn’t really need any fueling besides the Maurten Gel 100 Caf 100 I ate right before the start, so I just skipped them all. (The chocolate milk at the finish line really hit the spot, though.) I finished the race with a final time of 1:37:09.6, my fastest half marathon ever. My final pace was 4:36 min/km, and I finished 28th overall, out of 1,720 participants, and fourth male finisher in the masters category, with a shiny bronze medal to show for it. Not bad! I haven’t really put a ton of effort into my outdoor training runs so far this year since winter just barely ended, so it’s pleasing to see some progress in my running fitness nonetheless. Gotta savor these small victories; this one almost makes up for missing my race in Boulder.