I'll admit it - I was cherry picking this morning (or should I say lavender picking?)... figured I could use a workout and a little cash wouldn't hurt. Who would have thought so many good runners would show up to a little race in Mona, UT? Offer generous prize money and they will come :-) Andrea and I stayed with Rachelle last night... very convenient, since she lives pretty close to the lavender farm. Thanks Rachelle for hosting us and letting everyone in Utah in on the secret of this race! My goal was to run ~5:30 pace and with all the (slow / mountain) miles I've been logging the past couple weeks, I wasn't even sure if I would be able to do that. We didn't really warmup much... honestly, Andrea and I didn't even think this race would be competitive until about 8pm last night when we saw the entry lists... at which point we realized it wasn't going to be easy money. So I can't really say I was in a "racing" mode at the start. I just wanted to put in a good effort and stick to my original plan. The course is basically a loop around the Mona pond/lake. First mile on a dirt road, then on paved roads until ten miles... the last 5K is on a sorta-rough dirt road through the lavender fields. Its not an easy one by any means. 
We started off slow, making lavender jokes for most of the first mile. The race goodie bag included a vile of lavender juice that could either be ingested or applied topically. Can that possibly be FDA approved? Rossy joined us for the first bit, then it was down to the main pack who would round out the top five - Alden Bahr, Brett Hales, John Kotter, myself, and Riley Cook. The pace finally picked up a bit at some point during the third mile and I just felt plain flat... sort of as I expected. At some point we lost Riley, and then after we hit the 6th mile I dropped back from the other three guys. They put about 20 seconds on me in the next mile. I looked back at 7 and didn't see Riley, so I just went into "tempo run cruise control" mode the rest of the way. I really didn't want to push myself much harder than that today. John was up ahead by 20-30 seconds for the last couple miles, but I'm not sure I could have made an honest effort at making up the ground even if I wanted to. The last 5K through the fields was a tough part of the course - XC style! Running through dirt, rocks, and dodging all the people walking and taking pictures. Splits - 5:42, 5:50, 5:31, 5:22, 5:20, 5:20, 5:37, 5:21, 5:37, 5:36, 5:50, 5:39, 5:08, :37 [5:32 average pace] - Full Results 1:12:36, 4th place, $200. In the past year I've run 1:05:40, 1:05:45, and 1:06:02 for the half marathon. In those 3 races I earned a combined $175. Today I eclipsed that with the slowest half marathon I have ever run. Sometimes you gotta just pick the right races! :-) The course is definitely a fair one (about 30% of it on dirt and plenty of long, gradual uphill - in fact, its a net uphill). Race organization was fantastic - awesome prizes (like I said, generous cash prizes, even for age-group winners), the mile markers were right on the money, etc. Perfectly accurate course (Bill C measured it, so what do you expect?). Kudos to the young living farm for doing a great job. A really fun morning in general - Andrea's hamstring held up (yay!!!), Rachelle ran awesome (getting on the podium with some of the best runners in the state - what a jump for her this year!)... Melody continued her 5K dominance. Enjoyed chatting a bit w/ John and Kyle afterwards as well. I was pretty tired going into this so I'm content with my effort today. The TOU marathon is only 2 months away. I should probably start focusing on getting a little more structure into my training if I want to run really fast there... but I don't really want to do that yet. I'm having a fun summer and enjoying just doing whatever I feel like for the time being. Aerobically - I'm very, very strong right now... so once I get serious I'm confident I can get the wheels moving again in a couple weeks of workouts. Now I have to go plant my lavender weed in the yard... 
Are there dinosaurs on the lavender farm?!?!?!?! PM - 4 miles super slow and easy.
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