Becky was running the Hobblecreek half so I decided to run the last 8 miles with her. In order to get to mile 5 I had to run the last 8 miles of the course backwards. It worked well for my weekly long run. Dropped her off at the bus loading then killed some time at Walmart because I didn't want to get up there too soon. Got back to the bus loading area at 6 and saw a ginormous line of people still waiting to get on a bus with no buses in sight. Figured it was probably going to be a late start. Started my trek up the canyon even though I knew there would be a good break between my first 8 and last 8 miles. Kept the pace at a nice and relaxing 8:30 most of the way up. The climb wasn't too bad but the moster headwind was a bit rough. Started thinking how fast this race could be if the tailwind coming down held up. Felt surprisingly good on the way up. Thought of running up as far as I could before meeting Becky but wasn't sure if I could hold the pace coming back down if I put too many miles in beforehand. After running 8 miles I stopped and walked for a mile to the mile 4 marker. Turned and walked back down to the 5 mile marker and waited for the racers to come down. There was another guy there doing the same thing I was doing so we chatted for awhile. As usual, Becky arrived earlier than expected. She averaged 7:10/mile for the first 5 miles. We held the pace for the first half mile but then it started to slow to a more reasonable pace. We were still moving pretty well. We maintained something around 7:30-7:40 effort for the next 5 miles. Once we hit mile 10 she started to slow a little to 7:55. It is probably about the right way to run this course. Hit the first few miles hard then hold on the best you can. With 0.2 to go I slapped her on the butt and told her to start pushing. She finished well with a PR of 1:37:27. Apparently, I wasn't as nice as I could have been during the race. It came with the best of intentions but telling her that her knee was going to hurt whether she ran fast or slow so she may as well run fast and that she was faster than this and she had to push harder was not as well received as I thought it would be.
I felt better during this run than I have in awhile. I wish I would have gone further up the canyon and put in a few more miles but I had no idea I would feel this good. If I knew how good I would I feel, I would have prepared better and would run the Keercelbboh marathon. | 