Where to begin. My fiancee thought it was a little weird that I knew almost exactly what time I would run and I knew that I was going to get second place. Yesterday at packet pickup I asked a guy to organize the list of entrants by seed pace. There was one guy from Palermo who wrote 4:30, but he was in his 40s so I'm guessing he thought it was for kilometers, not miles. The other guy I noticed was this Jaydn Asay fellow who had run 15:20 in the 5K at UVU several years ago. No problem thought I. I did a little more research and realized this dude had run a 2:22 last year at St. George (I have since seen that he ran 1:07 at the Provo city half marathon to win that). That was when I knew I wasn’t going to get first. It was a bit of a gamble, but I decided not to wear the $80 singlet I had bought, since you can’t return it after wearing it. I did wear the expensive shoes and shorts I had gotten, hoping for second place.
Last night I had a really bad sleep. I wrote a note on the thermostat for my roommmates to not turn off the AC so I could sleep well, which is ironic because after doing that, idk if any of my roommates were even here last night and I woke up starving twice anyway. When I got up at 6, I was starving and stuffed myself more than I should have. That made me nervous as I warmed up, which only serves to slow down your digestion even further. I really believe one reason I did so well last year is because I was SO relaxed. Thankfully, when the race started, I felt fine.
Asay and his teammate got out in front. There was some high school kid that went with them. I was waiting for him to realize how foolish he had been, but by the time we were at 2.5 miles, they had about 25 meters on me and I was already going faster than I wanted to. I first checked my pace at 3 miles, which was a net downhill but still cooking for my current fitness level at 15:02. At this point though, high schooler has fallen off the Runner’s Corner bros and I pass him up. Within another mile, I had passed the other guy, too. After that it was a slog to the finish line. I was able to keep just enough in range of Asay that I got to follow in his wake and not get caught by a million 5K runners running 11 minute mile pace. Actually, said 5Kers were the real MVPs. A lot of them really cheered us on, and several inspired me a lot by yelling at me that I could catch Asay. I think we entertained them which is nice. But I had kind of given up on beating him so I’m glad they encouraged me to keep pushing and at least try to get him.
Long cool down.
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