Alta Club 5k. Sam and John Straley gave me the heads up on this race recently and I thought I would give it a shot. Since I'm not running Ogden Marathon and haven't been running over 15 miles recently, I thought a 5k would fit the bill for today's run. The race is near my house, so it was a short drive to the start, northeast of the Capitol, at the start of Gravity Hill. I did a little 5 mile warm-up around the area. I saw Scott Browning while I was out there and I knew this little 5k was going to be interesting. He excels at that distance much more than me. I continued my warm-up with Sam when I saw him. The course runs north on Bonneville Blvd ("up" Gravity Hill), past the horseshoe at the top of Memory Grove, continuing south toward 11th Ave, with a 180 turnaround about .30 before 11th Ave. Then return to the horseshoe at the top of Memory Grove/bottom of City Creek and its a glorious 1.3 mile downhill grade to the finish down beyond the gates at the entry to Memory Grove. Both Scott and I agreed the first mile wouldn't be very fast because gravity hill is tricky, but I went out ahead from the start to see what we could do. First mile split was 5:29. Second mile acutally climbs for the first .35 or so, and then a faster return toward Memory Grove. Split was 5:20. The last "mile" was a downhill cruise to the finish and felt good. Split was 4:42, but a little shy of a mile unfortunately. Finish time was 15:32, so too bad it wasn't a full 5k, I could have been close to 16 minutes. Fun race, though. My Garmin had 2.95, Scott's had 2.93.
Scott was 2nd in just over 16 minutes. Dude being pulled downhill by Baby Stroller was 3rd (still impressive, though). Sam was 4th, in about 16:30, I believe. John Straley was also in the top 10, I believe. All looked strong.
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