AM... 10 minute warm-up from hotel to buses, then another 10 minutes
with Mike Kirk at the start line. Met up with a good group at the
start... Ted, Chad, Cody and teamed up as we all had similar time
goals. Unfortunately for me, my poor training over the last month
definitely showed and I tanked about halfway through. Here's a recap... Mile 1 & 2 - 12:10 Starting out nice and easy--didn't want to get caught in the trap of going out too fast.
Mile 3 - 5:51 Let loose a little bit and dropped the pace. Trying to get into a groove to hit 1:17-1:18 pace at the 1/2 point.
Mile 4 - 5:51 Same pace, still working together as a group Mile
5 - 5:56 Had to stop for a quick bathroom break at the mile 5 marker.
Cost me about 40 seconds and the group got away from me.
Mile 6 - 5:50 This mile was blazing fast, considering my split
included the bathroom break--probably around 5:10 actual running time.
Looking back, it probably wasn't real smart to make up the gap on the
group so quickly, this early on in the race. Mile 7 & 8 -
11:51 Still working hard to get back up to Chad, Ted and Cody. I
finally caught them about halfway up Veyo hill. Then I had to back off
for a couple of minutes to recover from the effort the last 3 miles.
Backed off, but stayed within contact of the group.
Mile 9 - 6:20 Good group pace going.
Mile 10 -6:05 Good group pace going.
Mile 11 - 6:26 The last real uphill section of the course.
Chad kept us in check to make sure we weren't expending too much effort
on the uphills.
Mile 12 - 6:02 Finally about to start down. The group started
gapping Cody a little bit at this point. I wish I would have hung back
with him!
Mile 13 - 6:07 The group started rolling a little bit as we
went downhill. I couldn't go with them. The pace wasn't overly fast,
but my legs just felt dead--especially my hamstrings.
Mile 13.1 - 1:19:25 Slower than what I wanted, but from what
everyone had told me, this course can be negative split by 4 or 5
minutes if all goes well. I still had hopes of a solid sub 2:40 time
at this point.
Mile 14 - 5:56 The group is walking away from me, but I'm still holding pace at where I want to be, so no worries yet.
Mile 15 - 5:58 Status quo, but legs starting to feel it a little bit.
Mile 16 - 5:55 Status quo, but legs hurting more.
Mile 17 - 5:58 My legs are really starting to feel like crap at
this point. I was still able to keep pace, but was concerned because I
knew the steepest downhill section was coming up. I'm not the greatest
downhill runner in the world, so was a little worried.
Mile 18 & 19 - 12:13 Steve Olson and I went back and forth
with each other on these miles. I would go a bit ahead on the uphills,
he would get me back on the downhills. Legs were really not feeling
good on the downhills.
Mile 20 - 6:44 Cody came flying by my like nobody's business.
I was really wishing I would have backed off a few miles back with him
instead of plowing ahead with the group. My right hamstring and calf
hurt a lot at this point, and my IT Band hurt every step. Tried to
open up my stride, but everytime I did could feel the cramping coming
on.
Mile 21 - 6:34 Managed to keep scooting along, but not very fast.
Mile 22 - 6:51 Really hurting here.
Mile 23 - 6:56 Still hurting bad.
Mile 24 - 6:23 When I hit the last 5K I started feeling good
again. If you look at the course map, its no real surprise--this is
where the downhill sections of the course become less severe. Its
interesting that I wasn't able to handle the severe downhills and
couldn't run fast at all, but as we reached the more moderate hills, I
was fine and was able to push my pace lower. Clearly, I'm better on a
more gradual grade--maybe I would be better suited for Top of Utah?
Mile 25 - 6:17 Continue to feel better and started trying to push a little harder.
Mile 26 - 5:56 Felt great in the last mile. Started looking
ahead to people who had blown by me on the bigger hills to see if I
could catch them.
.2 - 69 Fairly strong finish on 300S.
TOTAL 2:41:30 The race was a PR, but I'm not overly
excited about it. I really thought that with how I'd run some of my
1/2 marathons in the last 6 weeks I would be OK to run faster than I
did on a course as notoriously fast as SGM--clearly not the case.
Plus, I kind of treat a SGM PR separate from other PR's because of the
downhill--thus I was hoping for a much faster time. Looking back at my
training I know that the lack of mileage is what killed me between
miles 19-23, so at least its easy to see what needs to be fixed. Quite
honestly, for me the best part of the race was finishing and finding
out the great results that so many people had... especially Paul
Petersen who made the Olympic Trials 'A' Standard, as well as all of the fast running bloggers who had huge PR breakthroughs. Now I'm looking forward
to a little bit of downtime and not having to worry about working
running into the insane schedule I've been living as of late... GREAT
JOB everyone!
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