Hot. It was 80 degrees F at the 6:30 am start time. My wife, brother, sister and Mom all ran this race with me. We got there around 6:05 to pick up our packets which took a little longer than expected. This caused the race to be delayed by about 5 min. The first packet I was given didn't have any safety pins. No one seemed to know where I could get some. I brought extras from home but lost them somewhere. I ended up grabbing another packet after I realized that it didn't matter which bib number I had. There was no chip on the bib. This packet also didn't have any pins. The third packet had some pics and I was off on my warm up. There wasn't much time now so I just got in a mile with about 4 strides. The course was an out and back along the parade route in downtown St George, Utah starting at the Dixie Bowl Stadium. At the starting line there were about 6 high-school cross country boys that were going to be hard to beat. They went out fast and I was only able to catch a couple of them by the end. I stayed consistent for the first two miles (6:04, 6:05) but felt like I couldn't go any faster because of the heat. Not too far in front of me was probably the only other older guy near the front of the race. During the last mile (5:55) I sped up a bit to overtake him. I passed him with about a quarter of a mile to go. The course was a little short (3.05 mi) based on my watch. I'm not sure of my place because the high school kids probably did around 17:00. 6:04, 6:05, 5:55, 11 |