Today was a very interesting day for me running. I felt great when I woke up and was excited for the race today. I got up to the starting area and did a short .30 mile warm-up. I then went to the starting line and saw everybody there. Jon, Paul, James, Cody, Walter, and a couple USU runners were also running today. The temperature was about 45 degrees at the starting line. It was a perfect day to run. I talked with Paul and he said that he was going to try and hit 5:20/mile pace down the canyon. I decided to stick with him for a bit and then see what happens after the canyon ended. The race started and I was about 5 to 10 yards behind Paul up until mile 4. He slowed down a little bit and said that I should go for it. It was a nice push for the first 4 miles. I was feeling good and ready to roll after this. I was in the lead for the rest of the race until about mile 11.5. I missed the correct turn going back into Providence and went about 3 blocks to far east. They didn't have anyone there to tell me when to turn. I stopped twice and tried to find my way back to the course. I went back down and saw Walter and Jon so I finally turned down the correct road and eventually caught back up with them. I went by them and came in 2nd place overall. Half-marathons are usually just 13.1 miles long but I ended up doing just over 14 miles when I crossed the finish line! Paul ended up coming back and running the last quarter of a mile with me. He knew that I didn't make the right turn. I crossed the finish line and one of the race directors realized that they didn't have anyone out on the course where I missed the turn. She said that they missed me by about 45 seconds. Oh well! Things like this happen. I need to get me a "I'm with stupid" shirt and have the arrow pointing straight at me. I ended up runing 1:13:42 according to my Garmin. 5:16/mile pace overall. This included 2 stops and going 14 miles! Here are my splits:
1- 5:18
2- 5:19
3- 5:17
4- 5:13
5- 5:08
6- 5:06
7- 5:04
8- 5:09
9- 5:14
10- 5:11
11- 5:18
12- 5:41 = going uphill on the wrong route and stopping twice, doooh!
13- 5:19
14- 5:13
14.1- :12
I am a little disappointed because I would have PR'd by about a minute if I made the correct turn. I was at 1:08:17 at my mile 13. This course was much slower than Bryce Canyon and it was ideal race conditions. Despite my blunder, I am really stoked about St. George. I am ready and need to keep pushing myself for the next month. The Logan running guys represented well. Cody and Jon both got PR's. Paul won the race on a training run and James ran a good race despite a week of not running much due to his trip. Congrats to all of them. I did 2.85 mile cooldown with the Logan guys. What a day! | 