Beaver Outlaw 1/2 Marathon 1:13:45 Getting started let me just say this is a great race and more people should do it!
Drove up to Beaver early this morning, registered (only $30 if you pre-register), and had enough time to get 3.5 miles in. Felt pretty good and looked forward to getting my goal of a 1:13 - which I knew could be tough since the course looked to be harder. Just the 2nd year of the race and it is way small, so it had some quirks (but nothing that would stop me from doing it again - like giant water cups that were actually kind of nice, and they weren't ready for me at a lot of the stops/intersections since last year's winner was just under 1:30, anyway...), but it was chip timed, started right on time, and the course way accurately measured. After my warm up, happy to see that Corey had come up - so at least we can push each other a bit. 1-5:30, Starts with a bit of an incline for 1/3 a mile or so and then turns on to the rollers out of town. Noticed a bit of a breeze coming at me and hoped that it wouldn't be a factor once we turned, but it was. Corey slid in behind me and I was all alone. 2-5:52, each of the miles through here were rollers with an overall uphill grade. I was working pretty hard, but didn't look at my watch until much later in the race as I knew the times would be slower and I didn't want to get discouraged. 3-5:57, somewhere in here I saw about 10 deer just off the road up on a hill. 4-5:53, at the end of this mile the course took a turn which took the cross-headwind off of us. It wasn't a killer, but added to the hills and the 6000ft. elevation, it was draining me. 5-5:48, this had a nice gradual down for 1/4 mile, so I hoped we were done with the hills. Then I turned a corner and the biggest graded hill of the race was right there. 6-5:15, now we started to get some downhill action. It was real nice gradual downhill, however, so you could really turn it over and have a good pace. Still hit 3 or 4 rollers in this mile that took some time. This section of the course was way pretty - up in the hills with some streams and stuff, saw more deer (actually back around 5 I think). 7-5:27, debated on whether or not to GU, but I figured I would. Unfortunately there was no aid station here, so I just held it (for another 2 miles until we finally hit one - that probably needs to be addressed for next year). Overall elevation loss, but again 4 or so rollers that had to be addressed. 8-5:13, through most of these miles I was feeling very good. This was a gradual downhiller and I glanced at my watch and was hitting some great paces, so I was actually surprised I wasn't closer to 5:00. Through these parts I gave a couple verbal checks to myself - if anyone was around they would have thought me a psycho, but we were out in the boonies so I talked away to myself. 9-5:32, ended up taking the GU here which is why I probably lost some time, 'cause this should have been more like 8 (maybe not as fast). 10-5:20, entered back into Beaver and hesitated a little at each corner since I wasn't positive where the turns were (there were cops there, but I caught them off guard a little). I had checked my time at 7 and did some quick math about reaching my goals and saw that I was right where I needed to be, but a strong last 10K (and now a strong last 5K) could get me to break 1:13 (which would be a true 1/2 PR, everything I have run faster has been downhill aided), so I was kinda stoked and decided to go for it. But I knew the last mile was back up hill to the finish and I would need some time to spare - wrong on that one! 11-5:22, felt like I was burning up the side streets of Beaver. I really felt good and was moving well through this flattest section of the course, until... Corey had said that the turn back to the finish was on Center St. and I started to notice that I was going to hit Center way before 12, and that meant more uphill; in fact I hit it right at 11. So I had 2 miles of uphill (really about 1.75, since the finish brought us back down the same hill we climbed right at the start) that I needed to gut out to get the time. 12-6:03, needed to be at about 5:40'ish and I just couldn't quite get there. These miles seemed to just drag as I saw my chances slipping for that 1:12. 13-5:54, a 1/3 mile section of dirt road here didn't help, but I wasn't going to get it anyway. But I kept pushing the hill and grunting and kind of yelling at myself. Actually pretty proud that I was near and just under 6:00 here. .1-5:48 pace. Came to the top of the hill near 12.75 or so I had 1:30 to run the .45; knew that wasn't going to happen, but I could still hit a good time. So I gave it a bit of a push and when the sub 1:13 was gone just kind of cruised it in. Ended with a few for a cool with Corey. (Mana) Felt pretty please with this race. In fact, it was my best race in a very long time. I would guestimate it to be at least 3 minutes slower than Dog Town (2:30 for the hills and then throw in the altitude) and that makes me pretty happy. My effort was very strong today, hip: only felt a pain in it one time for about 10 seconds, then nothing; and I stayed pretty focused all the way through the end. Again, I would put a little plug in for this race next year (I think the flyer said it would be the 11th of Aug). The course is true (even a little hard), but in my mind that is a lot better than some downhill burner that you get a false PR in and then can't walk for 2 weeks; it is very pretty; the town is a nice little place; and it is close enough that Southern Utah can drive up easy in the morning (my buddies were all actually up earlier than me to go destroy their legs on the SGM course!) and you could maybe even do that from the Provo area if you wanted (but it would be a nice little get away to stay over too). I am not on the Beaver Area Travel and Tourism Board, I promise!
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