A Balance, Redefined

The day started out right with Kristen sleeping her longest stretch since she was born, 9hrs! A welcome surprise to both of her parents who were at their wits end after the previous three nights. Got up a little later and get dressed to go out to cheer on the runners. Started to go up to Foothill when I released the course was changed to run down 22^nd instead. It cuts out the fastest mile but also cuts out one of the slower miles. Only problem is they make up for it at the end.
Stood around talking to Scott. Saw one of my colleagues on her training run, Robin. Then the runners started coming. Waited only for a few of them and then headed to SH, with the course change I was going to be hard pressed to beat any down. Luckily they make a loop of the park first so I was able to see at least the full marathon leaders on their way back out. I missed the half leaders at that point. Runners I was able to cheer on included Sasha, Jeff Mc, Albert Wint, Steve A, James M and others. I waited longer than I should have and then continued down 21^st. I cut back across and joined the half-marathoners.
I started running with this one guy Eric (BYU student) and just paced him through their 11 mile mark, and then he told me to go ahead. I should have known I’d have no self control with all the excitement going on around me. I caught up to and started pacing two other guys (never got their names) and took them through their 12.9 mile mark then peeled off to go look for the finishers. Didn’t catch many. Saw the guy Eric and he thanked me, I told him he should join the blog and then I headed home.
I had mistakenly thought I would be home by 9am. I saw Walter and briefly said hi. Then I saw James and Sasha doing their cool down and going to back to look for Jeff who was running the full. I joined them for about a mile. Then they stopped when the leader passed to let know Jeff know how far back he was while I continued up the hill home. I didn’t see Jeff. Not sure if I missed him or what. In any case I ended up running one extra mile today (not the end of the world) and getting home half an hour late (not a problem either as Sandra knows if it is a race or “one” more experiment in lab I never judge my time correctly).
After a good stretch we started family fun and that was the rest of the day, shopping and a 2+ mile walk in the beautiful spring weather followed by a grilled dinner eaten outside.
Running details, finally: The first nine miles I pushed harder than I should have but didn’t even look at the Garmin splits and was just going by feel. My breathing never got hard. My HR went up there but the breathing was controlled. My second mile was very quick as I was trying to get the park, 5:51 fastest in a while. I also had two 6:11 mixed in there. First nine miles were at a 6:26 average with an “easy” effort. The remaining miles were slow either talking with people or making the climb back up to 22^nd East. Total Avg. 7:17 HR 161

Overall, happy with the experience. Always fun to go and cheer on friends and it was motivational. Good to know my legs are still attached to my body and aren’t too worse for the wear after the abuse today. Plan is still to take it easy until June with no “real” racing until July. Still struggling with if Des 10K is the right race back, all that downhill on a bad knee???

Great job to all.