Canyon to Canyon Half Marathon. I signed up for this race last week because I wanted to have a reason to stay consistent with my running through the arrival of the baby and also so that I could have a reason to get in some faster, longer miles. Fortunately, Heather is very supportive of my running, even as she has the biggest share of responsibility for our baby. We're working on finding the right balance.
The race started at 7am from East Canyon resort in Morgan County, which meant a long but scenic drive to the start. I warmed up for two miles. I didn't really see any other competitive runners that I knew, but there were a couple of guys with a speedy look. There is both a 10k and Half M race and I didn't know who was doing what.
The first mile of the course is on the road, but then it heads south on the dirt road that connects East Canyon with Jeremy Ranch. Technically a "trail race," I suppose. I have trained on this road many times but never raced on it. "Rolling" is probably the best word I can use to describe the terrain, but that's a bit of an understatement. There are a lot of hills, none very long, but a few rather steep. The course is out and back.
I went out from the start with a guy named Steven Ault, who just finished running for the U. of Portland. He was doing the 10k and took off within the first half mile. No problem. Then another guy passed me, who I also figured was doing the 10k because he looked like he was chasing Steven, but when we got to the 10k turnaround after some steady climbing, he kept going. (My splits to that point were 6:13, 6:33, and 6:37). Ok, so we had a race! (He had Clyde's build, but not his speed). I kept a pretty close watch on the gap between us-- between 20-25 seconds until the Half M turnaround. (splits for 4-7 were 6:41, 6:36, 6:26, 6:15). On the way back, I noticed that the leader was slowing a bit on the hills and not getting much turnover on the descents. Mile 8 split 6:03. On a steeper descent at around mile 9, I let gravity pull me past him and worked on building a lead. Mile 9 split 6:05. By mile 11, the lead was about a minute. My splits for 10-13 (where I earned back some of the time I lost on the slow hills on the way out) were 5:55, 5:46, 5:37. So, a bit negative split. I think I won by 2-3 minutes or something close to that, but I'll have to look at the resultswhen they're posted.
It's no circuit race, but I'll take the win. It's a challenging course and if I could borrow Sasha's intuitive course calibration sense,I would say my effort today was about 1:16 on a flat course. I also realized that I have kind of missed racing something longer than 5k. The 5k has been good for speed, but I feel like I can make better decisions in a longer race.
This was a Sports Am race and James always does a good job of putting together a fun event. Plenty of food, shade, and live music at the end at the East Canyon resort.
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