Relentless

Where are you staying for the Provo 1/2?

Sub-1:10 on the current Provo River Half is equivalent to about 1:07 in Bryce Canyon. 1:13 would be very good.

So would a 1:10!

Dave - it is good to set ambitious goals long term. Short-term, when coming to a race, you should realize that your training/recovery routine has already decided how fast you can run it. What has not been decided is how slow you actually will. Your choice is between running what your current training will give you, or running slower than that if you set a goal that is faster than your true ability and fight really hard to get it. I've been there times and again, it does not work. You act like a superhero early on trying to ignore the signals from your body that you are not as fit as you think, then finally it catches up to you, and you suffer later on running slower than what you could have with a more realistic planning. The funny thing is that the superhero running attempt early on turns off your neurological ability to push, in addition to the psychological aspect of being brought to a realization of the truth at a very bad time, which turns off your mental ability to push. So overall you end up running a slacker race.

On the other hand, when you are fit to run faster than you think, you quickly discover it during the race, pick it up, and naturally end up with a faster time without any kind of a superhero effort.

For this race, unless you think you could run 1:07 in Bryce Canyon that very day, I would forget about 1:10, or your finish time will be significantly slower than 1:13.