This was a relay race that I did with some friends and family as part of the runners series for the St. George Marathon. This was the last run I needed for the Runners Series so baring any injury I will be running St. Gorge this fall. I'm going to try and qualify for Boston but I'm not sure that is realistic at this point. So the race. This was an awesome event!! I had a ton of fun and got to push myself, see lots of St. George, and have great time with my team. We all managed to PR our distances on this course, which is a result of training in Salt Lake and running 2,000 feet lower in St. George I think. My first run was just over 5 miles and was on the whole an elevation drop, but it had some decent hills. It was a very beautiful area to run. It was essentially from the mouth of the canyon leading to Gunlock, through another little canyon area and out to Ivins. I managed 7:26 per mile which is faster than I have ever run 5 miles before. I felt good the whole way through and wonder what I will be able to do next year, if I get the opportunity again, with more consistent training. More importantly, I'm optimistic about what I will be able to accomplish with the marathon since it will be a constant decrease in elevation the whole way. My second run was 4.25 miles but it had some pretty serious hills to run. This was a back road that meanders from St. George to Sandhollow reservoir over by Hurrican Utah. Oddly enough, the section with the steepest hills (a 10% grade on average) was the nice part of this run. I felt like I flew right up the hill with little difficulty and my splits reflect that. I managed the mile with that hill in 7:55. the hardest part of this run was a dirt road that had just enough golf ball sized rocks to make the run extremely difficult. Every step amounted to about half a step because I couldn't get my foot down to solid ground and get a grip before I pushed off. Going into this run I thought that I would be successful if I managed to keep my time below 9 minute miles. I'm happy to report that I was able to finish the whole thing in 34:34, an average pace of 8:07 per mile. I was very happy. I think that a lot of my success down there can be attributed to the stationary bike in my garage, for keeping my cardio solid while my leg healed, and running Flag Rock multiple times a week for the last few weeks, which has really made my legs strong. There are pictures, which I will post later but are not uploaded at the moment. | 
