Picked up Sasha today at 5:00am and headed up to SLC for the Salt Lake 1/2 Marathon. The plan going in was to run a relaxed tempo and be careful not to aggrevate some nagging issues that have bugged me toward the end of this week. The good news was my right lower leg problem was not hurting at all but the bad news was during the warm-up my right upper hamstring was feeling very sore and tight. Other than the high mileage I do not know why it was sore but it felt bad enough that I was pretty concerned before the start. So I decieded to run an even more cautious run as to ensure that I did not really tear up my hamstring. At the start my weeekly running odometer was at over 87 miles. The course starts on a slight down for about 200 meters and then begins a pretty nasty 4 mile climb of 800 feet to the top of little mountain at 6300ft. I really started out at an easy long run pace and was glad to do so as the hamstring still needed more warming up. I was behind the top two female runners for the first 3/4 miles and then passed one of them. I gradually caught up to the top female runner at about the 1.5 mile mark where the hill started to really get steep. I was still not putting too much effort in at this point and was happy to run with the lead female at this point. I ran with her and talked a bit until near the top of the hill at just past the 3 mile mark she dropped behind a bit. The top of the hill came at 4 miles and then the downhill kicks in. The first 2 miles of down is pretty steep and I was again trying to be as cautious as I could without breaking against the hill too much to try and not beat up the hamstring. I could feel the hamstring the whole way but decieded as long as it did not get any worse then I would be ok. My goal at this point was to just cruise on the downhill at what felt like a comfortable marathon pace. The miles went by pretty quick and I was still feeling ok overall but not wanting to push things. When I hit the 10 mile mark the downhill was not as steep anymore and I decieded to go ahead and push things a little harder and see how the hamstring responded. I could feel it a bit more as I picked it up it was still comfortable enough that I did not think it was doing to much damage. I guess we will see over the next couple of days. I ended up running my fastest mile of the race on mile 12 and mile 11 was my second fastest split of the race on on what was not as steep of a section of the course. The last mile was more of an a gradual uphill to the finish. The lsat mile was short according to the GPS and the course ended up short as well. THe GPS measured 12.97 so about .13 short overall. My splits, etc from GPS are below: Mile
| Splits
| Avg. HR
| | 1 | 7:09 | 152 | | 2 | 7:33 | 165 | | 3 | 6:41 | 163 | | 4 | 6:58 | 169 | | 5 | 5:35 | 160 | | 6 | 5:39 | 155 | | 1/2 | 42:30 |
| | 7 | 5:51 | 155 | | 8 | 5:43 | 158 | | 9 | 5:48 | 158 | | 10 | 5:45 | 159 | | 11 | 5:35 | 163 | | 12 | 5:25 | 165 | | 12.97 | 5:27 | 170 | Total
| 1:19:10(36:40)
| 160
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Overall I am pleased with the run. I ended up with a 5:50 negative split. I felt like I ran a good marathon pace long run and I don't think I aggrevaeted my hammy too much in the process but only time will really tell as far as the hammy is concerned. I think this course is slower than the Provo 1/2 by a few minutes and I still ran a bit faster. Things are progressing in the right direction as long as I can fight off the injury bug. 102 miles for the week. First time back over 100 in almost 3 years. Congrats to Sasha for another victory. He won pretty easy and ran a new course record I think. I will let him tell you exactly how he did.
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