my makeup may be flaking

Tough run today, but I think runs like this are an important part of my marathon training. Definitely not feeling fresh this morning but not feeling terrible either. I decided to try to beat my time up city creek canyon from 2 years ago. By the time I reached the trail head I was feeling quite hot so I stripped down to just my running short and tied all my excess clothes around my waist. Later on I was very glad I had them.

Anyway, it's pretty hard to map out the road going up city creek, but there are mile markers. I hit the first mark in about 6:49 (compared to 7:07 from my record). I was kind of disappointed about this split because I felt like I was really moving well. The course tool now says that this is really like a 5:40 or so because of the steep grade which makes me feel a bit better.

One issue with the first marker is that I'm not really sure where mile "zero" is. In hindsight I should have used the kilometers marked on the road from various races. Anyway, I reached the mile 2 marker in 14:00 which was really dissapointing and I began to lose confidence. The course tool says that this was still sub 6 equivalent pace. I got to the 3.5 mile mark in 24:23 which is about 5:50 equivalent pace overall and still ahead of my best time. At this point I felt like I was going to get my record and started to pick up the effort. It looked like I was going to do it, but for some reason the road was not plowed all the way to the top. They came up about 800meters short. I decided to try to pick my way through the snow but the final 800meters of this run are pretty brutal anyway as it is about a 7% grade at almost 6000ft. Eventually the snow became waist deep so I decided to hit my watch and turnaround. I figured that I stopped maybe .1 miles short of the summit but it is hard to say.

On the way back down I was running about 5:45-6:00 miles but my legs were really tired at this point so I wasn't really expending much energy. When I got back to downtown I managed to maintain around 6:20 pace. Overall the run was 6:37 pace for 18.75 miles.

AM 5.5 Miles

PM 11.25

Included 3 by mile with 200m jog on the U of U track. Lifted at the field house afterwards.

AM One loop of Sugarhouse

PM Did 6.2 miles hard in in 35:21. Ran down 500East to 2100S, then up to 1300 E, then down 900S.  Half way is right at 1300E and 2100S and I split 17:58. The course tool says that I was right on with my splits and that the run was 5:31 pace overall.

Today was one of those races that was all about effort. Going in I thought that the primary competition would be Teren and Fritz. At the Salt Lake Half I had started out with Teren and Fritz for 2 miles before blowing up badly. I decided that today I would go with Teren and Fritz if it seemed reasonable and face the consequences.

At the start, Teren sprinted out to a lead and Fritz followed. It seemed like they were going fast but I felt pretty comfortable sticking about 20-30m behind them. Brian Summers was also right next to me as I went through the mile at about 5:11. I was concerned that this was way too fast but I just wanted to see what would happen.

What happened was that it got very hard very quickly. Brian and I pushed each other the second mile but we only managed 5:38. I made a little surge here to try to get into a better pace and catch Fritz. Somewhere around here Jake Krong passed me. I wanted to try to stick with him to catch fritz but here my calves and shins cramped up really badly. This often happens to me in races and it goes away after a few miles but it was certainly not welcome at this point.

Thanks to Jake pushing me, mile 3 was 5:31 but once I lost him I started to become conscious of my allergies. This was not a good combination for me and I could feel myself drastically slowing down. I suddenly knew that this race was going to be slower than Salt Lake City. When I passed mile 4 with a 5:50 I knew I was in trouble and I entertained the thought of dropping out. Right around here I got caught by UVU grad Jared Keller (who was apparently running his first ever half) and Brian Summers. As they moved to pass me I glanced over and saw that they were running hard. (When Jake passed me he looked very relaxed). I knew that I could beat them if I pushed myself.

How do I beat people in races? Generally by throwing in surges at really awful times. We turned on to Center Street and faced a 2.5 mile long stretch with no turns. I surged away running 5:44 for mile 5 and 5:41 for mile 6. We left the street and turned on to a little trail. My legs were getting pretty tired and I was feeling a little bit nauseous. When I slowed down, Jared caught me again but he didn't pass. I thought to myself that he was either struggling to stay with me and couldn't pass or he just didn't want to make me surge again. My pace was pretty erratic on the trail as I seemed to go through good and bad patches once every 30 seconds or so. Never really finding a rhythm.

We left the trail and came out on to the road and I decided to surge again, hard. I got another lead on Jared and reach 10 miles in 56:50. I had kept my pace up on the trail much better than I thought. I was really crumbling at this point. I was having difficulty controlling my breathing for some reason, possibly a combination of the higher altitude (which always seems to hurt me and my allergies) plus I hadn't had any water and was getting pretty hot. My lead over Jared seemed to be growing though so I wasn't worried as I hit mile 11 and 12 in 12mins even. My last 1.15 was 7:30 which was not great even though there was a hill in it. I definitely fell apart pretty badly in the last 5k. I ended up well behind Fritz (close to 3 mins) but I beat Jared by over 30 seconds and Brian Summers by close to 2mins.

Trying to put this race in perspective: My first thought was that I was dissappointed I was faster than SLC. Well, that course was .06 short, this one was .05 long. That course was also lower elevation (about a 20-25 second difference). Plus this course is about 80-90 seconds harder in terms of elevation. Add that all together and you get a 2 to 2.5 minute difference.

Is that reflected in the times?

Here are the top ten people that ran both

Person	SLC	Provo	Difference
Teren	1:08:51	1:09:44	0:53
Fritz	1:12:34	1:13:24	0:50
Brian Summers	1:13:30	1:18:02	4:32
Me	1:15:00	1:16:18	1:18
Michelle Lowry	1:21:20	1:25:10	3:50
Eric Peterson	1:23:19	1:27:02	3:43
Mel Lemon	1:26:47	1:29:32	2:45
Demetrio	1:31:29	1:34:27	2:58
Skip Morehead	1:27:06	1:35:21	8:15

So a really, really good race for Teren then. I had thought after the first two circuit races that he was on the decline, but he seems to be rounding into form. Fritz also bounced back nicely from SLC and so did I, to a lesser extent.