Old Man Still running

Back to training before tapering next week.  Did a rather easy recovery run, not a lot of hills but plenty of miles to work out any kinks in the legs.  They felt good, no pain in the muscles left over from Squaw Peak 50 on Saturday.  The tendon problem is still there but managable.

I was out the door at 2:15 a.m.   What a wonderful morning for running. Perfect temperature.  Heard an owl hooting at me as I approached Eagle Mountain.  Once on the flat dirt roads and pavement, I turned out the flashlight and just ran in the dark, letting my feet feel the road.  I didn't push the pace too hard, just kept going.  Long bathroom break at Pony Express Park.   Aid station stop at the convenient store in the Ranches and then I ran on the new road, newly paved, still closed, Pony Express Parkway that connects Eagle Mountain to Saratoga Springs.  Very nice.  That will get the traffic of narrow back roads and will be a nice quick way to run out to the Ranches.

Ended up with a little more than 20 miles.   http://www.mapmyrun.com/route/us/ut/saratoga%20springs/624127609359570277

Decided to benchmark my fitness by timing a tough hill climb route I've done many times.   My previous best in 2007 was 1:08:17.  The route starts right behind my house, across Redwood Road.  It is a seven-mile out and back that climbs a total of 1500 feet.  The last half mile up is very rugged and steep, so it is a tough seven miles.  It first goes up almost a mile of pavement, up Grandview Blvd, goes into a gravel pit area and continues up a dirt road straight into Lott Canyon.  The road narrows and winds up the canyon until it finally arrives at the top of a ridge where you can look over to top to Eagle Mountain.

I pushed it pretty hard, at race speed, but didn't red-line.  To my surprise, I crushed my previous PR by nearly five minutes.  1:03:30.  I made it to the top in 39:26, and 24:04 down, for a 6:52 pace average coming down (had a terrible headwind slowing me in stretches).

I'm starting to think despite my advancing age, that I better set my sights a little higher this year, that I can do better than I think.  In each race that I have really pushed since Feb, I've either set a course PR or a distance PR.  So, something is working this year.

Splits: 1st Gate: 8:21, 2nd Gate: 19:15, Top: 39:26, 2nd Gate: 49:39, 1st Gate: 57:16, Bottom: 1:03:30.

A day off today for a one-day taper before Utah Valley Half Marathon tomorrow morning.  I'm hoping for cold and rain with a tail wind.  Looks like I have a 70% chance of getting my wish, should weed out those that never run in poor conditions.  The goal is: win my age group, and break 1:30.

Focusing on Bighorn 100 in a week.  My best time on the normal course is 29:00:16.  In 2008 I did much better on the altered snow course, 26:45.   But that course is much easier because it avoided the most difficult slow section that slogs through mud and snow.  This year I hope to make a huge improvment and mentally be ready for the most difficult sections of the course.  I showed at the Timp Marathon that I could blast through the mud and snow, so I'll just repeat that at Bighorn.  It looks like we will have some snowy sections near the top of the course, probably with some drifts of about two feet deep that involves a little post-holing, pretty typical.

My wild goal is for 26:00 and a top-20 finish.   I'll be careful not to kill myself on the huge initial 5,000 foot climb. Last year it wiped me out and I ended up dehydrated. I'll probably be in 30th place at the point and then just be content to pick of runners for the next 25 miles and then hold my position. 

I ran the Utah Valley Half Marathon and kind of also ran the marathon too (we’ll get to that).  I decided to run the half marathon, instead of the marathon, because I have Bighorn 100 next week and didn’t want to do anything stupid just six days before that race.  But, I also was determined to race this half marathon hard.  I knew it would be a fast course and that a PR was possible.

I had two goals, break 1:30 and place first in my age group.  I had looked at the entrants list and didn’t see any of the top distance runners in the state faster than me in the race, so I thought there would be no reason why I shouldn’t push for the win.

The course starts up in Provo Canyon near the tunnel before the turnoff to Sundance.  It followed the highway all the way down the canyon, with one of the lanes closed off for the runners and then went straight down University to the Provo Town Mall.  It was straight and fast.  There were a few hills, but the most significant one was at mile 2.

Rain was the big concern.  At the start it looked like we would get lucky and race during a lull in the storm.   To warm up, I ran up the canyon and a little way up the Sundance road.  I then positioned myself among the top 30 runners near the start, looking at all the fast, skinny young Sojourner runners.  The start was late, it waited to start at exactly the same time as the marathon, 13.1 miles behind us, further up the canyon.

It was still somewhat dark as we started, dark enough that I had a problem seeing my watch clearly for a few miles, but I could tell I was doing fine.  I started running right behind Maryann, but before the end of the first mile she kicked it in gear.  Going down the canyon I was passed by quite a few runners as we settled into our pace.  My splits in the canyon (miles 1-5) were 6:13, 7:15 (hill up), 6:22 (hill down), 6:37, 6:53.  I knew that I needed to keep my splits under 6:50 to reach my goal. All was going pretty well. I was breathing hard as usual but the legs felt fine.

However, the weather turned bad around mile three.  A soaking rain started to fall.  I had to slow in order to put my phone/mp3-player in a ziplock bag.  Thankfully, the soaking only lasted about a mile, but we had great fun avoiding puddles.  The course would be wet the entire distance.

I don’t remember any runners passing me for miles, probably the last one did around mile 4. But ahead of me a large gap got longer and longer.  I could see one of the Sojourner girls far ahead.  The gap probably got as wide as 1/3^rd mile or more.   I never stopped at any aid station along the way, just used my handheld bottle with Ensure and that worked great, giving me the energy I needed.

By mile 8, I finally felt warmed up and felt super so I pushed the pace a little harder.  I could see that the gap was closing ahead of me, especially on a long gentle hill.  My splits for miles (6-11) were 6:51, 7:00, 6:56, 7:05, 7:08, 7:00.

With a couple miles to go, a guy (Kerry Brock) finally caught up with me.  His first question was, “How old are you?”  I didn’t want to tell him, so I asked how old he was.  “49.”  I let him know I was 51.  He was relieved and so was I, we were in different age groups so didn’t have to really race against each other to the finish.  We both felt confident we were leading our age groups. He said he had been working very hard for the past several miles trying to reel me in. (At the finish another runner said he tried and tried for many miles to catch me, but couldn’t and he finished about 40seconds behind me). We had fun talking for awhile and he was interested to hear that I was un ultrarunner and doing this race as a long tempo run.  I pushed ahead again, feeling energized from the conversation, but by mile 12, he caught up and passed me.   I was watching my watch carefully and could see I had a very realistic chance of breaking 1:30, but then I saw the steep overpass ahead and knew that would slow down my last mile.  We were reeling in the girl ahead but never did catch her.   At the top of the hill I almost caught Kerry but he pushed ahead strongly and I didn’t really want to sprint.

My final two mile splits were 6:59 and 7:07.  The last hill slowed me down too much.   I crossed the finish line in 1:30:14. I crushed my half-marathon PR by over 4 minutes!  My friend was about six seconds ahead of me.  Close enough, I was very pleased.  The finish area was pretty deserted because I finished 26^th overall.  I indeed did win the 50-54 age group by over five minutes.  In fact, Kerry and I were the top two finishers for all those age 35+.  Not bad for a huge race with 900 finishers.

I rested and warmed back up in my car for about 40 minutes and then decided to head back on the course and run it very slowly backwards to cheer everyone and see friends.   North of the bridge I was able to watch the winning marathon runner cruising to his finish.  I said hi to Sasha who was in 6^th place.  It was great fun to clap and cheer for hundreds of runners and many recognized me.  I planned to run back until I found Smooth and company, but somehow I missed her.  I did stop to help a couple runners who were cramping and maybe missed her during one of those times.  But that was OK.  At times I reversed course and ran awhile with friends.

I ran clear back to the mouth of Provo Canyon and then turned around when Mark Sanderson arrived.  (It was about at the 4:00 mark) I calculated that my total miles were now more than the runners around me.  So now it was time to finish my marathon.  I kicked it into gear to finish the final 6.5+ miles.  It did look rather odd that I was running 8-minute miles while the others around were running 15-minute miles or walking.  People gave me lots of cheers, I felt rather embarrassed.  At each aid station, I stopped and feasted.  I figured since I didn’t use them during the half, why not use them now?  I had great fun and finished my marathon+ at about 4:55.

I congratulated some ultrarunner friends at the finish. I had missed the half/marathon awards, but went  up and they gave me my plaque. It looked nice.