I had been planning to do the Ogden half marathon for the last few months but because of a nagging hamstring, I waited to see if it would be recovered enough to run it before I signed up. I decided about 4 weeks ago to go ahead and run it but when I went to register they had already filled up. My son had been wanting to do the 5k and still wanted to go so I decided to do the 5k also. I got my 5k PR last year on this course at 19:40 and that is the last 5k I had run before today. I didn't go in expecting much after battling injuries that kept me from any fast running for about the last 7 months. Most of that time I had to keep my pace above 8:30 and a lot of running above 9:00 pace to keep the hammy at bay. I didn't know what to expect going in and thought I might be happy to just go under 20 min. I figured a pr would be great but not likely as last year I had been doing a lot of speed work.
My son and I got to the start line about 6:15 and I did a couple of warm up miles. At the start of this race you have over 800 people starting on a very narrow road for about the first 400 meters and then you turn onto the bike path. I took off quick at the start to not get trapped behind to many runners when it narrowed down. I hit my first mile in 6:04 which I thought might be to fast but I didn't feel that bad.My second mile was 6:16. At this point I realized I was likely to pr. I may have been slowing slightly when I hit the last straight mile of road. I started to gradually pick up the pace the farther I got and past a few guys along here. With 4 blocks to go[1/2 mile] I picked it up a bit more. When I had 1 block left I really went for it. I had a guy ahead of me that I thought could possibly be an old guy like me and I sprinted all out the last 70m and got him by 1/2 a second. He turned out to be the winner of his age group which was a couple younger than mine. My third mile was 6:08. My garmin had the race at 3.13 miles and my last .13 according to garmin was 30 seconds. I figure my actual last mile was 5:48 to 5:50 with my last 200 figured in [ the first 1/4 of mile 3 my garmin had me at 6:20 pace and I sped up quite a bit from that point on. ] My final time was 18:59 which not only whomped on my old PR but came in just under my long term goal of sub 19 min. Not by much but I'll take it. I was 11th overall and took 1st in my age group.
My son only ran about 20 miles over the past 6 weeks in preperation and he ran it in 29:16. a 9:27 pace. He didn't push real hard just ran comfortable and had a great experience. He can't wait to do another.
It was fun to meet a few of the bloggers and fun watching the stream of them that came across the finish line in the top 12. I can't wait to get out and set some more PR.s this year. | 