Hell of a Half — Natalie Uyeno — MM15186 – HF17314 – DA3505

Race report for Hell of a Half in Exeter, CA on 8/7/21:
Lifetime half marathon #183 (45th of 2021) is in the books! ✅ The Run the Valley Series Hell of a Half lived up to its name. It was extremely hot & hilly, but it had some of the best course support I have ever seen! 😃
There were 10 aid stations, 8 of which had water, electrolytes & buckets of ice water with sponges that the volunteers dumped over the runners to prevent overheating. Several of the aid stations also had gels and at least one of them had a big spread of food (both salty & sweet). The ice cold watermelon pieces were extremely refreshing! 🍉 The volunteers did a great job of keeping us cool & hydrated! 💦
The race started off well for me. I was doing run/walk intervals with Lance Null and we purposely did a bit faster pace at the beginning when it was nice & flat because we knew that hills were coming later!
The hills started around Mile 5. Our strategy was to walk the uphills and run the downhills with run/walk intervals on the flat portions. That went ok until around Mile 6.5-7, when I blisters started developing on the bottoms of both of my feet! 😢 I tried to run as much as I could on the fast downhill portions, but it was very painful and I also had to keep my elevated heart rate in check!