Ogden Marathon 2:43:48 (by my watch) 9th Overall Race day began with some easy running in Huntsville as a few of us stayed at Logan Fielding's grandparents place the night before. That was super convenient and nice. We were all pretty anxious, but ready to go. The race started at 7 and the sun was already up and warming things up quickly. I wish this race would start at 6. The race started out pretty good with the body agreeing with the watch on the correct pace. We created a group of 3 pretty quickly (Walter, Ben, and I). Chad and Jeff created their own group not too far ahead and the leaders (Logan, Sasha, Clyde, and Seth Wold) were taking it easy for the first few miles too. The race was pretty un-eventful as we cruised down South Fork chatting and such. We stayed together really well but had a guy who recently moved from New Hampshire? join us for a while. I was feeling pretty good on the easy downhill and as we transistioned to the rollers at mile 9+ I was still happy with the pace. We took it easy (but it still felt like a race). I also was careful to hydrate well taking water or Gatoraide at every station. Things were shaping up nicely with us hitting the half in 1:20:20 (more or less). That was my personal goal was to hit the half in 1:20-1:21. It came so naturally too, so I was pleased. We stayed together (minus the guy from back east) up the big hill and along the lake. We overcame another older gentlelmen who we didn't talk to. We held back until we hit the Dam. I decided to go with the flow and sped up. I gapped my group, and tried to keep the momentum going, but fatigue was setting in. It didn't take them long to catch up with me and we ran together down Ogden Canyon. Ben had a run-in with a half marathoner, but other than that, we just tried to keep it together. I felt a lot better this year in this section, but I was struggling pretty bad. We exited the canyon and entered the trail and I fell apart. I knew I had only 5K to go, but no amount of willpower would make me keep my pace. I felt like I was barely moving. I tried tricking my mind into the "only this mile left, after that you can walk" trick, but it didn't work very well. We got strung out through here and had Kory overtake us all. He had been 30 seconds behind us the whole second half and made his move at a good point. I was in survival mode all the way to the finish. I think the only guy who suffered as bad as me (in my group of course) was Walter who walked to take a drink at mile 25 and couldn't get going again. Pathetic kick at the end for me, but I didn't care at that point. I managed to not pass out or collapse and seemed to recover reasonably well. I was impressed with Ben's race as he was strong the whole way. He got his revenge on all the races I beat him this spring....Now look out for him once the joins the blog. He will be shaving even more time...
I am happy with my race. It turned out about as expected. I really wanted 2:40, but I feel I ran my best race I could for the day. 9 min improvement over last year. ~2 min equivalent effort PR over St.George last year (based on Sasha's calculator). Still some serious work to do to get to 2:30 at SGM, but one step at at time. It was a good day for Bloggers as we took 10 of the top 12 spots for the men and had one in the womens top 3 (Michelle), and another in the top 10 (Josse). Nice job everyone.... Splits: 1- 6:00 (adjusted for the misplaced marker - they really struggled with marking this race) 2- 6:04 3- 5:55 4- 6:11 (long) 5- 5:42 (short) 6- 6:04 7- 6:08 8- 6:05 9- 6:22 (rollers) 10- 6:11 11- 6:24 12- 6:18 13- 6:22 Half- 1:20:20 14: 6:02 (short) 15: 7:18 (super long - 6:33 pace) 16: 6:04 (short) 17: 6:11 (short) 18: 5:59 (down the big hill) 19: 6:05 20: 6:12 21: 6:15 22: 6:08 23: 6:04 24: 6:36 (ouch) 25: 7:10 (felt horrible)
26: 6:47 (still dying, but almost done) Finish 1:16 (5:48 pace) Ave HR: 175 (186 max)
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