Left the house at 3:45 pm, parked at the hotel, everything fine. Woke up about 1:15pm
Hard rain driving to the race, light rain at the staging area, significantly subsided just before the start. I dressed perfectly for this, thin tights, new white, Huntsville rain jacket, head gloves, Boston headband and SLCTC hat. No issues at all. rained almost the entire race, wind was not a factor.
My timex died at about mile 20 from wetness. Garmin was fine but my garmin splits are off. Close, but off. I started the race with the 3:15 pace group, hung with them all the way to 13.1, had to hit a porta potty. Only burned about 1:15 in there. I was on my own the rest of the way. My pace was about 7:30 all the way to mile 17. The hill ~ 14-and 15 was a high 7. I lost about 1:50 minutes in the porta poty at 17. Had a strong pace down the canyon, High 7:20s and 7:30s. Had to porta potty again at 20. Lost at least 2:50. Very depressed at this point, thought I wouldn't be able to get a fast enough BQ to assure entry. Legs were feeling bad at this point but i was still holding 7:30s. I calculated that I could still hit 3:22 - 3:23 if I could hold it so I kept digging deep. I held it to mile 24, finished 7:59 and 7:50 last two miles.
splits from garmin
1 7.09
2 7.13
3 7.13
4 7.08
5 7.13
6 7.17
7 7.13
8 7.22
9 7.36
10 7.24
11 7.27
12 7.25
13 7.30
14 8.40
15 7.48
16 7.30
17 7.50
18 9.24
19 7.33
20 10.20
21 7.30
22 7.34
23 7.29
24 7.37
25 7.59
26 7.50
27.43 3.13 garmin almost a quater mile off
A few other runners have said they swear by imodium. I'm going to check it out and try it. I would have run maybe 3:18:32 if I could have avoided the last two porta potty stops. That would have given me a 3rd place finish and sub 3:19, which was my top goal. I'll live with the 3:23, knowing I kind of ran at 3.18.32. New BQ standards this year, need 3:25. In 2018 the standard was 3:30 but you had to be 4:09 faster. I think my 3.23.12 gets me in.
I was about 30 seconds faster than last year, which was a goal.
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