Beautiful day for a race. I wasn't sure what to expect since the course had been changed so many times. I talked with Curt Catmull last night and he said he measured the course about six different times to make sure it was accurate.
I stayed the night with Miriam's parents in Orem. We met Hildisvini at the packet pickup and ate at Subway. This morning I woke up at 3 a.m. and couldn't get back to sleep. We met up with the runamoks to get on the bus to head up to the canyon. I sat by Tracy A and Luke on the bus. Tracy told me some funny stories about his step-father-in-law and had me laughing the whole way up.
As was expected, there was some disorganization at the beginning. I wanted to do some warm-up sprints, but a man kept yelling at us to stay on the side of the road since busses were coming. No one quite knew where the start was, but we saw Curt in his pickup truck shoot the gun off, so we figured out approximately where it was.
My splits are as follows:
1- 8:24
2- 7:59 Renae caught up to me and we ran about 4 miles together. We talked about how weird it was that Tracy1 wasn't with us! She opted out of the race today.
3- 8:04
4- 7:59
5- 8:12
6- 8:03
7- 7:32 I felt pretty much "in the zone" from this point on. My breathing was comfortable and my legs were on cruise control.
8- 7:10
9- 8:24
10- 7:27
11- 7:42
12- 8:00
13.1- 8:09 Coach was near the finish line and yelled "200 meters left--SPRINT!!" I took off as fast as I could. It was actually about 400 meters left. I saw him after the race and said, "You lied to me--it wasn't 200 meters!" He smiled and said, "I know, but I got you to run faster."
It was a PR for me today. We were all very pleased with our times. We call Miriam "MIR" (most improved runner) since she is knocking the socks off of all of us. So many of my friends were there and I loved chatting with them and enjoying their success. It always gives me such a high to run with them and share in this experience.
I feel like I have a hold on the half-marathon distance pretty well. It's the marathon that I feel like I haven't quite gotten the jist of it yet.
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