This was kind of a hokey race. As much as I hate to dump on volunteers, I've never seen people at aid stations who appeared to have less of a clue about their purpose than today's crew did. Not only did they not hold cups up or jog alongside runners (even the top runners, who were spaced widely apart), but in some cases they were even obstructing the aid stations (I had to try to dodge a girl at the final aid station at Ruth's Diner (there were only 3 in the race) to even grab a cup, and by the time I got it, it was empty. As a result of the crappy aid stations, I only got two small swigs of water for the race. I took part of a gel at the second aid station around mile 6.5, and as I was not able to get enough to drink from the partially filled Dixie cup I managed to grab from the table, the gel sort of sat in my stomach and made me a little miserable for a couple of miles. I realize that this was not a major race and that it's always hard to get good volunteers, but if you're doing aid stations, it seems to me that you should at least train your volunteers to be as useful as possible. The award ceremony was a waste of two hours. There were computer problems that delayed the men's results over and over again (they didn't start the men's awards until 90 minutes after I finished). Finally, after wading through a million age-group awards, they finally announced James Moore as the overall winner, essentially as an afterthought, since most people had long since left. Then they announced the relay winners and thanked us for coming. I had left my kids home alone (my oldest turns 14 on Saturday, so she was my babysitter), figuring that I'd be home no more than an hour after finishing, so I was a little frustrated when it had been two hours and they still hadn't announced the overall results. I approached the race director and asked him about it, and he replied, "Oh, we only recognize the overall winner." Great. They go three deep for every imaginable age group and give no recognition to even the top 3. Note to self: if I ever come back, remember to leave as soon as the race is over. Waiting two hours was about 90 minutes too long.
With that rant out of the way, here are my splits: 1: 6:26 (I fell in behind James Moore and a guy with a Penn State XC shirt on about 400 meters in and gradually lost them on the long uphill) (AHR 175, MHR 200) 2: 7:19 (this is a steep section, and I decided to back off and save something for the rest of the race, but I had no idea that I had backed off THAT much!) (177/191) 3: 6:25 (176/179) 4: 6:51 (177/179) (Little Mountain is the 4-mile mark) 5: 5:18 (172/176) (ahh, this feels better) 6: 5:20 (170/172) 7: 5:39 (167/172) (settled into sort of MP effort here) 8: 5:36 (168/172) 9: 5:34 (170/172) 10: 5:32 (172/174) 11: 5:33 (173/176) 12: 5:15 (175/177) (Lisa Madsen and my friend Tom Wilkinson were cheering at the trailhead for the Shoreline Trail and gave me a nice boost!) 13: 5:29 (177/181) (my Garmin measured the course at 12.95, so this was a partial mile) The complaints above notwithstanding, it was great to be running down Emigration with a partially closed road--the car and bike traffic volume was down about 80% from a normal Saturday, so I was able to run the tangents for the most part and didn't have to scream at a single group of 6-abreast slow cyclists. In addition, the weather was perfect from start to finish. This was my first half, and other than the rather dumpy support, it was a great first experience at this distance. My goal was to finish under 1:17 and I accomplished that. The purpose behind registering for this a few days ago was to provide a tune-up for St. George next month. I think it was perfect for that.
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