I was in Utah for the week, so I decided to enter a race on Saturday morning. I wasn't up for the full Des News Marathon, so I entered a half in Bountiful. I took the kids to a baseball game the night before and stayed for the fireworks. Not thinking things through very well, I downed a Diet Coke in the late innings. That kept me up all night. I wasn't sure how I'd do on this one. I've felt kind of out of shape lately -- as out of shape as you can get running 30-50 miles a week. But, the last couple of weeks I've decided to get more serious. The race was kind of strange, but fun. Only about 100 runners and about a mile into it a bunch of us got stopped by a train, so I lost about a minute and a half. I also had to stop at a traffic light near mile 11. Cars were going by and there wasn't anyone there to block traffic. The mile markers were off too. Miles 3 and 6 were off by about a quarter mile, then at mile 9 my garmin read 9.9 miles. But, the final length of the course was correct. With such a small field, there weren't many people around. One woman was running about the same pace as I was (in the 7:40's) and we traded off chasing each other for about 10 miles. Then after mile 11 I started to fade a bit. Mile 11 was 8:11, Mile 12 was 8:31 and Mile 13 was 8:28. The woman I had been runing with held her pace and fell back. The only other person around in the last four miles or so was a guy I passed at mile 10.
I should have tried to kick it in the end, but my legs didn't have much left in them. I only sprinted for the last couple hundred yards when I saw the finish line. This wasn't my fastest half, but it was fun and I felt really good about my time considering my training lately. Plus, the small field made for a good place. I got a little handcart as a prize. Then I spent the rest of the day driving the family back to Idaho.
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