We spent the evening at the Murphy's house and it was simply the best pre race experience that I've had. The kids loved it and Rob had a lot of great advice. We drove the first 10 miles of the course which was a first for me. It helped a lot this morning knowing what was in front of me. Rob's wife just goes all out with the hospitality and race support. This was the first race that I had my own water bottles handed to me by my kids!
I ran a semi hard 23 mile run Tuesday this week as part of a marathon schedule that I am behind on so I took the last few days off and did no warm up at all this morning. I watched Rob jump a fence to use a Porta Potty while a lady took a picture of him and I had two Peeps before the race started. Perfect race prep.
The race pace was a bit steep for the first 5 miles. I was worried about it, but didn't feel winded so I hung with it. I was looking for a 1:12 this morning so the race was more about my clock than racing. I just needed to put in those 5:27 miles. The 5k came around at 16:08 and the next few miles at 5:20 or so. As we turned and came back up the hill, Walter was running just to my side and a bit behind me and now I could feel the pace. He was yelling at every single runner that he knew who we passed up the hill and I couldn't believe that he had the energy for it! Psyched me out..I was dying.
Around 6 miles the pace felt great and I settled in. Somewhere in here I caught up to Fritz and Fiddy, who must have been doing close to 5 min pace early in the race. I noticed that I had started to lose a few seconds on pace for a 1:12 so I picked it up a little and concentrated on holding on and actually running some tangents correctly. I lost some time through Liberty Park and through mile 11 though and as we came up the State Street hill a guy passed me pretty quick. I didn't even know he was there so as we turned the corner I looked back to see who else was getting ready to kick my butt and there was Walter's red singlet right behind me. I picked up the pace for the last mile to around a 5:16 and passed the guy who got me on the hill. It was encouraging to feel like I had plenty left in the tank.
I learned a lot on this race, mostly from Rob and a little from pre race prep. I had a very small breakfast, some sleep and better fuel during the race. It cut three minutes off my half time two weeks ago. This race is the Tempo run for the start of my last training for Ogden Marathon so the next three weeks will be painful.
The post race was just fun, fun! Lots of people there from FRB and the USATF Circuit. My girls ran the Kids Marathon with Rob's kids and loved it. | 