My Spicy Life in China: Moganshan Trail Run Half Marathon

Start line!

Carston Feigelsen and Steven Sheffield let me tag along! We drove up from Hangzhou the day of the race and represented! Carston, a BYU Hawaii cross-country runner, placed 2nd. Steven placed 6th overall. And I won for the girls! 13.1 miles (21km). There was also a relay option and we couldn't really understand why anyone would go all this way to run 7km. But by the time it was over I think we all understood!

This was the toughest course I've ever ran. It was a 30% incline at one point. There were several inclines that had to be walked among the many ups and downs. It was rainy, muddy, slippery and steep--and incredibly beautiful! We ran through bamboo forests, rivers, muddy trails; along narrow ridges and under and over fallen bamboo trees. Did I mention how slippery this run was? It was really fun and I loved it. And I was so happy to cross the finish line! It really was crazy. Hard core. There were parts that I was literally pulling myself up the mountain by hanging on to bamboo trees. It was that steep and that slippery. I was pretty muddy by the end. Great race!

There was a gal, Camden, in front of me that I didn't catch up to until half way through the race. She was awesome. I think she does lots of events. Hope to catch up to her again someday!

This is after the beast of a mountain we just climbed. It really is gorgeous. This is the only pic I took while running the race. I was that knackered that I could actually stop and snap a shot. Good thing I recover quickly!

The best part of being the number one girl was that Brian was so proud of me! And Carston and Steven thought they would be waiting a long time for me and they said they underestimated me. It was funny to hear them apologize! I assured them that I was very happy to exceed their expectations even though I was relatively a lot slower then they were.