Old Man Still running

Ran the "Handgun route" out out to Eagle Mountain town center, through Ranches and through the Church farm. 17 miles.  Started at 3:00 a.m. and finished at 6:00 a.m. for a 10:41 pace.  Not bad on the rounte, felt fast. About 5.5 miles was on pavement, the rest on dirt roads.  Had some climbing, about 900 feet.   I call it the "Handgun route" because the map of it looks like a gun: http://www.mapmyrun.com/route/us/ut/saratoga%20springs/346127229247492886

The bad news is that my problem tendon in my ankle is very bad again.  Not quite as bad as last April, but pretty bad.   I'm wondering if seasonal allergies flair it up.  I'll have to research.  I can't remember twisting it bad again.  On all the uneven dirt roads it really complained but was better on the pavement.  A little discouraging, but I know it eventually gets better.  Healing is VERY slow and just stopping running altogether doesn't seem to help a ton.  Sticking to pavement or treadmill does help.  Boring. 

Got out again early, at 3:00 a.m.   This was the same run as the previous morning but I added a couple miles to the handle of the gun and increased my pace to 10:14 average.  Felt like I was going faster, but there are some slow climbs and dirt roads.   Boy, the cold air really sinks down to the middle of Cedar Valley.  Both mornings my hands in gloves really got cold for a few miles in that area but then it got warming going up Unity Pass to the Ranches.  The nearly full moon was out, very bright.  For over half the run I didn't use my flashlight.   The problem ankle was much better today.  I wore different shoes and that probably helped.  I'm encouraged.   I also noticed that a possible side-effect of taking Zyrtec for seasonal allergies is tendon disorders.   Has me wondering because both last year and this year, I started having the tendon pain when I started taking Zyrtec.   Yesterday I switched to something else.  We shall see.

The map of my run is at: http://www.mapmyrun.com/route/us/ut/saratoga%20springs/439127238059614718

I've been plagued by peroneal tendonitis again (ankle), just like a year ago, but not quite as severe.   It doesn't bother me much on the smooth, mostly-flat surfaces, but kills me on the trails.  So I took three days off completely to see if it would help.  It did a little, but still, as I was standing at the start, trying to keep warm, the ankle was in some good pain.  Oh well.

The Provo City marathon runs mostly on roads in South Provo and out toward Utah Lake.  It is mostly flat and also runs about four miles on the Provo River paved trail.   I didn't enjoy this half marathon as much as last week's Thanksgiving Point marathon because this one has way too many cars going by, very bothersome.

A great feature of this race was the weather.  A squall of rain hovered over us and just stayed there.  Twice hail fell from the sky.  I enjoyed it, because I usually do better in poor weather compared to the competition.  It just doesn't bother me much because of all my early cold weather training.  But I did finish before the real downpour started.

I treated this race like a long training tempo run.  I wasn't very serious about it, but still did pretty well.   After two miles, I pretty much settled down into my place, not being passed by other runners but only catch a couple.   I got a little lazy going up the Provo River trail. But wow, during the last two miles, incredible energy kicked in and I was able to pass a couple runners and finish very strong.  That is a nice sign for the Ogden Marathon in a couple weeks.  It felt like I could continue sub-7 miles at that point for quite a few miles if the race was longer.  

My mile splits were: 6:27, 7:01, 6:58, 7:01, 7:09, 7:13, 7:12, 6:56, 7:50, 7:44, 7:37, 7:31, 6:40, and 1:07.   I finished in 1:34:26.  That was 27 seconds faster than last week.

I got second place in my age group, surprised that someone beat me because I never saw him.  But he beat me by five minutes, probably among the fastest in the state in my age group.  I've been getting accustomed to winning my age group in these short races.

I was 31st out of 669 starters. 4th place masters (age 40+) (74 starters).

This was a nice tune-up for Ogden.  That is three times this month that I've run a half marathon in 1:34.  If I do that in Ogden, that will beat my split from last year by 4 minutes. That would be sweet.