St. George Half 1:12:31 morning - 21. Got a solid warm up in of 4.5 with Clyde and a bit with Dustin. It was rainy which made the temps not bad; a little breezy at times. Thought I might hit around a 1:15. I felt like I was/am in good shape, but not race shape of any kind. So anything around that would be solid. Plus the course is tougher than in the past - the toughest of the 7 or so variations I have run of this race. Fritz was there and so we figured to let him go and do his thing and BJ Christensen who would probably be tough to beat, and then of course a few other guys looked good. Splits are off of my Ironman - didn't wear a Garmin. 1-5:19, started off good, didn't feel fast (we tried to miss the first turn, after the pace cart ground its gears and we passed it!). 2-5:20, feeling solid, nothing to complain about or write home about. 3-5:25, a little hill off the river up to St. James. But this is a hilly course, so my plan was to keep real cool on the hills and just let whatever happen. 4-5:19, used the downhill out of St. James to try and get the pace solid again. I was trying to drive any negative thoughts about maybe I was going to fast out of my head. Clyde fell just a few strides behind me in here and Fritz was putting probably 5'ish seconds per mile on me. 5-5:34, this mile went up around Bloomington Hills North and was a bit slower. I though Clyde was coming up on me, but it was BJ. 6-5:47, up past the gold course to the top of Bloomington Hills. I tried to stay with BJ for a bit, but I was really being timid on the hills (which was probably good in retrospect). 7-5:43, this mile was up Brigham Rd. From when he passed me through here BJ probably put 30 seconds on me, but then not much the rest of the race. 8-5:15, tried to use the downhill (1/3 mile) down Brigham to get rolling again. To tell the truth, I wanted to gap Clyde as much as possible because I knew he would be pushing. 9-5:29, around the cliff ledges on the trail. Funny, they paved a trail access for the race, but I don't even remember that section at all. 10-5:40, the next few miles were a battle for me. I would push to see if I gained anything on BJ, then I would back off and have to remind myself that Superfly was pushing from behind. I probably did that 4-5 times during these two miles alone. 11-5:48, start thinking that a pretty good time is possible if I can really reach down the last two miles. Give Clyde a yell as he is on the bridge, but notice another guy right on his tail. 12-5:32, was working hard, but really didn't have much left in me. BJ added his final 15 seconds on me here in 11 and 12. 13.1-6:16, was too focused on pushing the finish and breaking 1:13 to notice the mile marker. But I finished decent and was happy where I was at. Feel decent about the race (must since I actually wrote about it - and I haven't done that for the last couple races). Maybe if I would have believed in myself a little more, a sub 1:12 would have been in order. But all-in-all not too shabby for the old guy. Finished a few miles of cool with Steven and then for the true highlight of the morning, got to watch my daughters run the kids mile. Rylee (10) took 1st girl and 3rd overall and Pyper was 7th overall and 2nd girl. The course was a little tougher than last year's and with the rain a bit slower too, but they did awesome. I had to give them a hard time for showing their old man up with a 1,2 finish when I could only pull out a 3rd! (Stratus black 900.1)(Rocket 242.5) Goals for next week: hopefully the legs will recover decent and I'll get back to some solid mileage. More doubles will becoming into effect and I am going to try and get larger chunks of my mileage in the morning with the 6-9 kind of stuff in the afternoon. that way I can get into the weight room and do a little strength training and plyo stuff that I need to do before the track season takes over.
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