Overall I’m very happy with this weekend. After the girls
went down on Friday I drove down to Provo for packet pick-up. On my way out I
saw Jeff and caught up with him for a while. I even got to meet his family. I
then slept at a friend’s parents’ house. It was nice being able to sleep into
3am on Saturday. My head hit the pillow and I was out until my alarm went off.
The morning was good and I was up near the start with plenty of time to spare.
The start area was well stocked with port’o potties though for the first time
in history I had a zero star race. This had me nervous how my guts would
respond to the descent. I saw James and Fritz at the start, but knew I would be
hanging way back from them. In fact I had no idea what I was doing. I
realistically thought anything from a 1:15 to a 1:25 was possible and expected.
I was hoping to at least hit the 1:20 mark and would be happy with anything
under that. However I did not go into this race with a game plan other than to
enjoy being at a starting line with a fun race ahead of me. I did about a mile
of warm up.
The gun went off exactly at 6:00 am and we were off. I knew
this course was fast as the last time I raced down this Canyon I ran a 1:12
(Provo River ½ 2008). So I just hung back and watched the lead pack take off. I
found myself in a group of about 3-4 other guys with one lone woman (I think
Andrea) in between the leaders and us. Two of those guys started to go so I
went with them. One soon dropped off and me and the other guy passed the women
but the other guy soon left me as well. I counted about 9 runners ahead and was
happy to be running in ~10th place. I ran on my own for a brief
moment until a BYU student (Michael) caught me and asked what I was shooting
for. I told him about 1:20 and we ran together for a couple miles chatting most
of them. However, the canyon and the need to push myself soon took over and I
started to leave him. I was solo running from that point on until about mile
10. At that point an SUU runner caught me. At the time I heard someone gaining
on me I was convinced it would be Andrea as I figured from her recent 10K she
should be finishing right around me. In any case this guy was a good kick in
the butt and we chatted briefly as he got me to pick back up the pace. He miss
judged the course and said we had one mile to go when we had two. He dropped me
then I caught him again and he dropped me one more time before the finish. It
was good to have the distraction and get in a little racing at the end. When I
saw the clock I couldn’t believe my eyes. I finished and chatted with Fritz and
James briefly. I was able to meet Andrea and talk to her for a short time as
well. She had an amazing 1:17 and I was right to have suspected her on my
heals. After a brief break, Fritz and I took a cool down back to the cars and
then back in time to see Paul finish a very amazing 2nd in the full
in 2:19. We stuck around to see a number of the St. George contingent cross the
line and then I ran back to find Jeff and run him in the last mile or so. It
got a little warm there at the end for the marathoners. Total I did about 5
miles of cool down. After that I caught up with a number of the guys I hadn’t
seen in over a year. It was nice talking with them again however briefly.
Here are the race details; Split (HR)
5:43 (166)
5:50 (174)
6:01 (178)
5:42 (179)
5:30 (179)
5:42 (178)
5:47 (180)
5:44 (181)
6:00 (180)
5:56 (180)
6:06 (182)
5:51 (181)
My Garmin messed up here and didn’t record the last split
and the “change”. I saw 1:16 something with 13.14 miles.
5:59 (?)
0:45 (?)
8th Overall, 1st Age, Gun Time 1:16:37
As I said I am super happy with this performance. The way I
feel tonight makes me believe I could start training for a marathon again and
overall just really enjoyed seeing so many of you out there. It had been too
long.
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