My wife and I ran the the Six Tunnels to Hoover Dam 12K this morning. With the multiple tunnels in this race, I opted to go GPS free so no split times are available.
Overall, it was a good race. It was an out and back that utilized an old railway that was renovated a Rails-To-Trail project. The surface was primarily packed dirt and gravel. On the way out, we ran on a slight incline for the first two miles which took us through five former railway tunnels (the course previously went through a six tunnel, hence the name). This part was scenic with a rocky hill on the right and Lake Mead below us on the left. Shortly after exiting the fifth tunnel, we got off the old railway and began to power downhill on dirt service roads. Part of this was pretty steep with a 12.5% grade sign at one point. The last bit (estimating about a half a mile) was on a concrete downhill with a lot of short switchbacks leading to the turnaround which was on the top floor of the hoover dam parking lot. The race at this point was pretty fast but the drawback to all that steep and fast downhill was that we had to climb back up it. I powered back up the switchbacks and high-fived my wife who was about to head down it. From there, it was working back up the dirtroads to the railway trail. Once on the trail, it was literally all downhill and the pace picked back up through the tunnels as we raced over the final two miles to the finish.
Final time - 1:06:46 (8:58 pace) with the wife finishing about 8 minutes later.
Next up - The Hoover Dam Half Marathon on Dec 14th
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