Top of Utah Half Marathon. I have been out of town all week and didn't get much running in while I was gone so I ended up having a pretty good taper for today. The downside is that I hit my pillow at 2 am (due to flying home last night from San Francisco) and had to get up at 5. I don't think that affected me that much though. My goals for the race were to PR (I knew I could easily beat my best of 1:21:45) and to break 1:18. I was excited for the race to see where I am at so I can set a realistic goal for St. George.
The race conditions were ideal 48 degrees at the start with a couple of miles of nice tailwind down the canyon. Good day for fast times. I started out just behind Jon. Paul, Logan, Walter and James were ahead of me. I tried to keep up with Jon but when he started to crank out some 5:20 stuff, he dusted me. About that time Taha came up on me and we ran together most of the race. He took off after James (all the other guys were way ahead by then) on hollow road and dusted me. I was able to work my way back to him on the millville hills and pass. I couldn't quite catch James as he held me off. I did get chicked though on the millville hills. Cynthia Fowler was right behind me (15-20 seconds) the whole race and she did a good job on those hills. I kicked at the end of the race to catch her back but couldn't quite pass her. We ended up less than a second apart with James a few seconds ahead. I am pretty pleased with the result as I killed my goal and my PR by 5 min and 45 seconds.
Mile Splits:
5:33
5:43
5:45
5:49
5:36
5:43
5:41
5:41
5:49
5:56
6:04
6:22
5:39
:35
Total Time: 1:16:00:73 (5:48)
Ave Hr: 178 Max HR: 187
7th overall and 2nd in 25-29 (as Paul and Logan and Jon won overall)
Ran an easy 2.5 warmup and 3 miles for the cooldown
* Fast running bloggers did great. 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 7th overall. (RESULTS)
** Article in Harold Journal about the race http://hjnews.townnews.com/articles/2007/08/26/sports/sports03.txt | 