Fun stuff this morning! I decided that since I run this canyon every week that I should use my home court advantage and go for a new downhill PR. My previous downhill PR (1:42) was at Hobble Creek half about 5 years ago. This year for Hobble Creek I was hoping to beat that time but it didn't work out and I got 1:48. (had a few extenuating circumstance and lost the mental capacity). So my plan coming into this race was to get low 1:40s and hopfully sneak down into the high 1:30s.
Since Tom is running Big Cottonwood full next Saturday he took this at my pace instead of his. I also had Beth and Aub as the 1:35 pacers to help me out. I loved not having to look at my watch and figure things out! I was able to stay with Beth and Aub till about 10 miles then I just kept them in sight.
I was nervous for a bit at mile 2 as my right leg was getting very tight on me. But luckily after about a mile all was good. The water stops were every 2 miles and they popped up so soon each time! I was loving it!
I knew the last few miles were going to be the hardest and I just kept trying stay focused. I thought of Brayden Nielsen a few times when things were hard and heard a Booyah to keep me going. (May Brayden rest in peace and may we all embrace his booyah attitude for life!)
I was happy to see my posse at Beer Can Flats! Chad, Hal, Pat, Roman and Doug were all there to cheer me on. Many of them ran to the mouth of the canyon with me.
Looking back at my splits I had one mile that I got 8:01 the rest were all under 8:00 with an average of 7:20 overall. My legs felt great the whole time! My breathing is the thing that slowed me down.
The timing system was all messed up. Not sure what happened but if you look at the official report it will probably say I got 1:28. That would be pretty cool, but it is wrong. Everyone was off because of a timing issue. They said that even though the timing was wrong the placings were correct. Tom ended up 2nd in his age also, even though he was running with me. There was like a 16 minute difference between him and first place. So even if he would have pushed hard he would have still ended up with 2nd.
Anyway, very satisfying! I know I could not do this time on a flat course but it was sure fun to do it here today! And I got a really cool leaf medal!
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