Interesting run. Got in last night around 3am and caught two hours of sleep. I was kind of excited to see if I could run a legit Utah marathon course since they are so rare, one week after St George. I was also hoping to get a decent long run in without tearing something up. One of the neat things that I have discovered about running marathons so close together is that you never know how you are going to run. You can crash in six miles or keep it hanging together on legs that seem dead from the start. Kind of neat to push yourself mentally from a different direction. Today was number 10 for the year.
I started off with Ben and Riley both who were obviously in much better shape than me to run a good race and after 3 miles I let them go. By six miles I had serious doubts about the race, totally dead legs at 6:30 pace. I slowed to just above 7 minutes and they felt much better. What a course, it just seemed to go up and up. Three over-road crosswalks, hills in all the wrong places. I set in my head two "rules"that I have read from Ultra runners that has worked so well this year for me. 1. You will never feel the same in 3 miles as you feel right now. 2. Break it up in sections and run each one. By the time I reached 19 miles I realized I was having fun, the sun was coming out and the rest was downhill. I was slow as heck, but I wasn't going to hurt anything. I did expect at any moment to get chicked by Allie or Devra so I kept one eye out behind me for the last 6 miles.
Pretty sure today I saw my first course cutter. During this marathon it was very easy to keep track of those around you, lots of turns with long stretches and over the cross walks where you can see the course down and behind you. Especially around the city creek loop at mile 22 where you can see the runners on the opposite side a mile behind you. At about mile 24 a guy about my age it seemed, suddenly came out from the side of me and passed me just hauling down the hill. Since he looked like an old guy too, I decided to catch him. I got past him but he hung on and passed me back just before the finish. My Garmin has a 5:59 for mile 26, fastest of the run for me. Never saw him during the race. Meant to ask anyone on the course if they saw this guy but lost interest in the whole thing with the post race stuff.
Half split 1:32:12
3 miles easy late tonight 8:45 pace. | 