Came down for the Provo Marathon today and was expecting to run the kids race with the kids after, but they decided it would be much more fun to sleep in with grandma so I ended up just driving down from Salt Lake myself. I ended up early which never happens, so when the bus got up to the start I asked the driver if I could stay on while he did the next run down and back up. That worked pretty good and I got 30 minutes of sleep. Not a bad start.
I had no idea how to pace today. It would be great to beat Ken R. time on this course last year so I wanted a 2:40. I decided to see how the first 8 miles or so went and go from there. There was a very tight group of four guys with Jon K and a few trailing them. They all gapped me pretty quick in the first three miles but the legs felt great so I caught up to them and tucked into the group since there was a wind coming up the canyon. We ran together for a couple of miles and then Jon began increasing the pace. The two other guys fell off and the group of four guys with the BYU jerseys pulled ahead and I was alone. Again, I had no idea how to run this, afraid I would crash any minute, but felt really strong so I decided to bank some time and stayed with the 5:50 pace. I came through the half at 1:16:27 so pretty close to that. Then I really felt it in the legs and would either have to stop or slow down. I almost saw the Grim Reaper on that hill near the finish line. Anyways, I slowed to 6:20 and felt my strength return after 4 miles. I think stayed pretty much there all the way to the finish. I missed the turn into the park and got an extra .2 in before I noticed there were no cones anywhere. That always sucks and takes some focus to not let it all go to %$@. I was just super happy to find the legs strong for another marathon and it was actually fun for the last three miles!
So have three marathons in six weeks hurt my marathon pace? Hard to say. I definetly have less bounce and strength, but took 10 minutes off my time last year on this course. I recovered quick today in the middle of a marathon, which is unusual. I'm not able to get in any quality training between marathons so it feels like I'm losing some speed. Most important though, it's been fun, and marathoning is hard to keep fun...It will be interesting to see what Ogden is like.
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