My alarm went off at 3:00 AM. I got about 4 hours of broken sleep but I felt fine because it was race day and I had no choice but to get moving. NOW I'm tired! Anyway, met my sis in law at her house and she drove us to Ogden. This was her first half and she did really good. I left her at about the halfway point and she maintained the pace we had been running the whole way through. Her time was 1:52:30-ish. The busses got us to the starting line with more than an hour and a half till starting time. I think next time I'll bring a throw away camp chair so I can take a nap while waiting. What a beautiful morning in Eden! I think that's the town where the race started.
My time of 1:48:41 is based on my Garmin, which showed a distance of 13.2 miles. I'll post my official/chip time when it becomes available.
Mile 1 - 8:54 - Pretty slow, but I wanted to be extra cautious, and this is where the only real hill is, and the first mile was my warm up. I started in about the right place because I just slowly passed people, pretty much throughout the race.
Mile 2 - 8:37 - getting warmer. I shed my winter hat at this point.
Mile 3 - 8:18 - This is about what I needed to average for the run to reach my goal of breaking 1:50 for the half, so I knew I needed to make up some time. No big deal, I had 10 miles left to make it up.
Mile 4 - 8:19 - Shed the gloves at this point. I think we entered the canyon somewhere in this mile. So far so good.
Mile 5 - 7:58 - Yep, we're in the canyon now, good downhill action, and a friendly tailwind to boot.
Mile 6 - 8:21 - I am being extra cautious in this race. I have a fear of going out too fast and blowing up at the end. I just want to make my goal and feel good throughout the entire run. So far, I've not forced my pace at all and am just kind of rolling down the hill. I had been running with sis in law up until this point. I felt pretty comfortable and starting thinking about the time I still needed to make up to reach my goal so I picked it up a little.
Mile 7 - 7:53 - Gravity assist.
Mile 8 - 8:00 - I like mile 8 because that leaves only 5 miles and it's easy to wrap my feeble little mind around that.
Mile 9 - 8:04 - Just comfortably moving along. Leap frogging with the same 4 or 5 runners at this point.
Mile 10 - 8:03 - Passing some runners now. I do feel a little worked as this is the fastest 10 miler I've ever done at 1:22:27. No worries, I've got some mileage base to lean on. In the past this wasn't the case, I'd be running slower and would be derailing by now.
Mile 11 - 8:04 - Such a beautiful canyon and morning!
Mile 12 - 8:22 - Gee, do you think we're out of the canyon and running on the flat part of the course now? How could you tell? I kind of enjoyed this section on the parkway, it was a nice change, and I could hear the crowds in town at this point.
Mile 13 - 8:16 - Even though the race was almost done, I didn't push too hard. I knew I had my goal and was just trying to stay even and soak in the crowd atmosphere a little.
.2 Mile - 1:33 (7:42 pace) - a little kick right at the finish.
What a great course and well organized event. I can see why it sold out so quick this year.
Well. I have to say that I'm not a fast runner, but this really is a great improvement over my "past" running life. Fast running blog has made a huge difference in the way I currently train and think about running in general. THANKS FAST RUNNING BLOG! Thanks to all of you readers and bloggers.
Now with the half behind me, I'm looking forward to training for the TOU Marathon this Fall. | 