my makeup may be flaking

Last 20 miler prior to Des News. Allie was kind enough to drive me all the way to the start so I could experience the Big Mountain prior to race day. In all honesty I was not expecting much from today because my legs were pretty sore from the half marathon on Monday and I had hit my biggest mileage week of the year.

Anyway, I decided that this was good practice for me as it would force me to try and run the downhill in a way that limited the damage to my quads (which complained loudly when anything was asked of them today). I found that if I took short, extremely fast step then I could avoid the braking that normally trashes the legs. This was pretty mentally challenging but I'll probably only have to do it for the first 2-2.5 miles of the race. I obviously was not cutting tangest but I reached the 1st mile mark in about 5:45 and mile 3 in 17:05. I began to stride more normally after that I got to the mile 4 mark in 22:58 and mile 5 in 28:49. These miles are all just approximate as I was sticking to the shoulder on the left hand side of the road. However, they showed that as the road flattened out, I did not slow much because I was quite fatigued.

In fact, those first couple of miles were so terrible that I found myself looking forward to climbing little mountain. Allie met me just before the turn and offered me some powerade. The plan was to have her meet me here and then every two miles starting at 14 to simulate what it would be like on the race day. The 6th mile is actually quite a climb and I made the turn toward little moutain averaging 5:48 pace.

I dug in climbing little mountain and I did start to feel "better" because I wasn't breaking but my legs were very sore and my calves were tightening up from overcompensating. I stopped briefly when I got to the top and gave them a massage before downing a GU and heading off again. Now it was time for some long, lonely, painful miles dowm Emigration before I could see Allie again. I reminded myself that once I got out of the Canyon I would almost be done, so it wasn't really that bad. I actually was only about 5 secs per mile slower then two weeks ago going down the canyon when I felt much better. Today, I didn't really try to force it, just to take what my legs could give me and I managed to hold it together down the canyon just fine running low 5:40s. At 14 miles I saw Allie again and that reinvigorated me. In the marathon, that would mean 12 miles to go. Today it meant 6 to go and that was a much easier thought mentally.

I'm very happy with how I run the last section of the canyon and today I carried that momemtum up the Crestview Drive hill. In fact, I attacked the whole Wasatch drive section very well. Besides being somewhat less than efficient with my Gu and drinking (and some construction on the sidewalks that caused several detours) I managed the same time as my last tempo. I turned on to Foothill and realized that I felt great. I was running basically 2:35 pace at this point and felt that I could have run strong through the finish. I contented myself to run the foothill section strongly and once again this proved to be a good section for me.

Once I got to Sunnyside I decided to jog down 500S to the fieldhouse to finish my run. Even though I had felt strong, stopping at the light made me realize just how much I had tired my legs out.

I think that the fatigue in my legs cost me 1 minute in the opening miles, and using the rule of thumb that the taper gives me 10-15 seconds a mile, I'm thinking that I can get 2:28-2:31 on the day.