I woke up at 5 AM, and just started getting ready for it. My younger sister and my dad also were running the race. The Smithfield City Youth Council helped with the race a bit, and my older brother was in that so he also had to get up early. We weren't sure what time it started at, but we thought it was 6. When we got there, we stretched and drank some water to get ready. When it started I felt pretty good, and ran a little behind Paul for the first half mile, and ran with another guy, who was next to me at the start, for the rest of the run. I started slowing down when the race started going up 6th south, and then the guy I was running with (I later found out his name was Jacoby) staretd going ahead of me by a bit, so I just pushed it up the hill. I knew that after it there was a pretty nice downhill. At the top of the hill there was my older brother and a bunch of Youth Council members handing out water and gatorade, which felt good, but I didn't really need it much like I do on other runs. After that we run down hillside and I saw my mom doing my paper route. I tried to say thanks, but I wasn't sure she heard me. As soon as we turned onto Summit (Starting mile 5) I saw my neighbor taking pictures. I tried to say something to him but my mouth had some saliva in it that I couldn't even understand what I was saying and just stopped talking. We kept going down Summit, down the golf course hill, which I tried to go really fast down, and then started up the canyon. I had talked to Jacoby about how this would be the worst part of it, and when it started I think I was ready for it. The first mile up the canyon went great. Same with the second. Same with the third, they were all faster than I was hoping to get. After another half mile we turned around. Jacoby and I went down the canyon way fast. A little after mile 10 he told me that we should try to get a 17 minute 30 second or something like that for the last 5k. I said he probably could, I was getting pretty tired, and I wasn't sure if I could keep up the pace. He kept incouraging me to keep going at the pace and our first mile of the last 5k was 5:10. I then felt like stopping, but he kept incouraging me. Our next two miles were kinda fast too. I don't know about the time of them, but I tried to get pretty fast. I think I got ahead of Jacoby for the last quarter mile or something like that. After I finished I was surprised at my time. If anyone should want to run this race, I definately recommend it. It is a pretty nice race. There were some people that it was there first half marathon. My Dad did great in it. My sister also did great. It was her first half. I later talked to a ton of people after the race. Paul told me he thought it might be 400 meters short. I talked to Russel Olsen and his brothers, who ran the 5k. His younger brother took 1st in it, his older took 2nd and Russel took 3rd, which I thought was pretty cool. Their sister took first in the womans in it too.
| 