Ogden Half marathon today. My sister won a free entry for the half and the 5k, and she was nice enough to give me the half marathon entry. I have never done this race and didn't really know what to expect going in. I thought if I got 1:30 that I would be happy, and ended up doing 4.5 minutes faster, so I am really happy. I was just able to keep pushing and didn't get too overly tired at the end. I did the full marathon last year, and they started about 10-15 minutes late, so at about 6:57 I thought I would start doing some light jogging to warm up, and head to the start line. I ran across the field once and they announced that the race would start in less than a minute, so I jogged to the start, got my watch ready and with no time to spare we were off and running. I knew that the first mile had the only real hill in it, so I wanted to start kind of slow and take it easy, but who ever actually starts out slow? We all say we are going to, and it is so hard to actually do it. I was watching my heart rate and thinking "this is too fast, I need to slow down". I really didn't want to let how everyone else started influence me to start out too fast and not do as good as I could. Mile 1 was 6.38, faster than I wanted, but I thought I would take it especially since the only hill is now out of the way. People were passing me and I was trying not to let that get me down. There were a couple of people in particular that passed me and were going pretty fast. I thought, "I am going to beat them". One was a teenage kid with bouncy hair, and the other was a guy wearing a roosters jersey. Mile 2 was 6.40, and my heart rate was high, but I kept going. Mile 3 was 6.48. All of these times are what I was hoping for, but my HR was still high. Mile 4 was 6.49. The downhill starts at about 4.25, and I was pretty much in my place of a group of about 40 runners stretched out over half a mile (my place was dead last in the group). I thought that I would catch them here and get out in front, but of course they were going to use the hill as well. For the next several miles I stayed where I was, maybe jumping back and forth with a couple of people. Mile 5 was 6.26, 6 was 6.32, 7 was 6.27, 8 was 6.23. By the time we came out of the canyon I had passed a lot of people and was running along with a guy and a girl who I had picked out from a few miles back. It took me over a mile to catch them, and then right at the mouth of the canyon I saw my family. My HR was higher than I wanted (about 175ish), then right after I passed my family I looked down and it was at 182ish. That is a lot higher than I had wanted, I knew I wouldn't be able to hold that. After about 200 yards I looked to see where the guy and girl were. It took a while to catch them, and we ran together for about .25 miles, but they were now way behind me. Seeing my family really got me going, something about my wife speeding up my heart. Mile 9 was 6.09
I got to the trail with my HR way higher than I wanted but i was thinking maybe I can push hard for the last 4ish miles. I began picking people out who were in my sights, and passed them one by one. Mile 10 6.16, 11 6.42, 12, 6.31. I came around the last turn and I see the bouncy hair kid and the rooster man. There are about 100 yards in front of me with about .9 miles to go, and they were right next to each other. My heart rate is at about 186 and I can't believe I have held this high this long, but only .9 more to go and I have to beat these guys. So I push a little harder. I get to them with .4 to go, and the bouncy hair kid starts to walk. I try to cheer him on and tell him we are almost there, he tries to go, but stops again after only a couple of paces. I pass both of them, and pick it up one more time, there is a guy almost to the finish and I want to beat, I start pushing hard, I pass him with about 20 feet to go, then he passes me, DANG! I guess I started my final push a hair too early. Mile 13 was 6.28, and 13.1 was about 40 seconds (I forgot to stop my watch).
The entire race all I was seeing was my splits and HR, I wasn't adding up my splits either, so when I got to the finish and saw 1:25:30, I was very pleased with my race, I was expecting around 1:30 if everything went great, and I guess I under estimated myself.
After the race I ran up the canyon to get my dad who was doing the full. I had to go 1.25 miles up the canyon to find him, and then I ran with him for 4.75 miles. Total of 19.1 miles today. The last 6 were at a good pace, felt good today and I am way happy with the results.
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