We were really looking forward to the trip down to St George to get a break from our cold winter weather so it was a little disappointing when the forecast was for possible rain and snow and temps in the 30s not to mention the possibility of bad roads the whole way. We were getting heavy snow when we left on Friday and we narrowly made it over Sardine canyon [which was terrible and is a whole other story] only to hear on the radio that it had been closed just as we got to the other side. The rest of the drive was no problem at all. The temp for the race was around 35 deg and overcast but no wind or rain so quite nice racing conditions. My main goal was to beat my last years time of 1:29:00. I was hoping I could go under 1:28 but my training hasn't been the greatest [although better than last years]. I took off and just tried to keep it somewhat comfortable. I hit the first couple of slight uphill miles in the 6:30s and the next couple slight downhill in 6:19 and 6:28. The 5th mile climbs the entire way beginning with a steep climb for about 100 yards. I hit that mile in 6:46 and was still feeling great. Things really didn't feel bad at all until the next big hill that starts near the end of mile 8 and then climbs for all but the the tail end of mile 9. I didn't remember this hill lasting so long and kept thinking we were coming to the end of it but as we turned each corner it just kept going up. I just tried to keep a good pace and not loose too much time. At just before mile 11 the course comes back to the bike path where you are now running back against a lot of runners. At this point I was running just behind the lead female runner and a couple of other guys. She was getting a lot of cheers from the runners going the other way. I wasn't feeling all that great anymore [probably due to my lack of mileage lately] and I didn't see anyone around that looked near my age group. I knew I was going to more than exceed my expectations so I was content to just hang out where I was. The finish line was a welcome sight and as I was coming to the line they were readying the tape for the female winner to break through. I wasn't quite sure what to do so I just ran up onto the finishing mat all the way to the edge and stopped to stay out of the way while she ran through. My time ended up 1:25:24 [6:31 AP] which I was thrilled with. It is only 18 sec slower than my PR at Top of Utah 1/2. This is an unaided loop course with a lot of hills so much slower course than TOU. Splits: 1 -6:34 2 -6:38 3 -6:19 4 -6:28 5 -6:46 almost all uphill 6 -6:19 all downhill 7 -6:28 8 -6:36 Level until near the end climbs steep 9 -6:47 Climbs all the way with short steep drop at the end 10-6:29 11-6:37 slight uphill until the end
12-6:35 13-6:31 13.1-5:35 pace
I took first in my age group for the second year in a row and 25th overall. They said they had 2,000 sign up for the race which met the limit and was way up from last year. This was probably my last race in that age group [as I will soon be moving into the 50+ category] but I think I could make a good argument that it was my best race to date.
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