Enjoy the Journey

I hate to do this but I am going to just paste the same report that I put over on the forum flyers board. Here it is:

I came to St George with two goals, meet some forumites and finish in under 2 hours. I came very close to reaching both.

My friend and sometimes training partner Rich and I met up at about 8am (he had flown in from Susanville, California). We walked over from the hotel to the start and froze for a while before we realized we could go in the Dixie center  Once inside I scanned the crowd looking for anyone who resembled a forumite but found that when all you have to go on is a picture it is hard to pick someone out in the flesh.

We got out to the start line just in time and bang we were off. I made a very dumb, rookie garmin owner mistake of not turning it on enough ahead of time to get a signal. It took the first quarter mile or so to acquire one. As a result, it’s only value became to give me my pace and to challenge me with difficult math problems in trying to calculate what my actual time and distance might be at any given time. I found that as the race wore on the math became increasingly fuzzy. I also saw the horse on the loose at the start. I hope he got back in the pasture without any harm.

The first couple of miles were not comfortable. My legs felt heavy. My legs finally started feeling better at about mile 5. Soon after Rich and I crossed under the freeway we saw the leaders coming towards us. It is so cool to see what these guys look like and how fast a 5 something pace really is. I told Rich that there was a guy named Rhett whom I had never met who was probably going to be coming by somewhere in the top 20 or so. So I started to quietly say “hi” to any one of those leaders who looked even remotely like Rhett. Going that fast most of them looked like they could be him. As each zoomed by I said “go Rhett.” I got mostly blank stares or weird looks but one of them smiled and gave me a slight wave. Turns out it was Rhett and he was flying!

I kind of liked that long loop that turns you back around. About half way through it (the gentle uphill part) I found a comfortable rhythm and sped up a little. My friend Rich faded behind me. I ran the rest of the race alone. The downhill part of that loop felt great. My pace slipped under 9 and I thought “wow this is fun, I can hold this pace forever.” By mile 12 the euphoria was gone and I was hurting. My pace slipped down to around 9:30.  I saw a small lady with black hair in front of me and even though I knew speedy Smooth would probably be far ahead of me I took a chance and in a kind of loud voice said “smooth.” She didn’t look back and when I passed her I could see that it was defiantly not her. Oh well I guess I can’t be lucky every time with the name calling thing.

The last mile or so was really tough and I just kept telling myself to hold on and finish strong. That downhill bridge at the very end was only a few steps long but it made my quads scream and for some weird reason that made me chuckle to myself. I crossed the finish line with a chip time of 2:00:54. Average pace 9:17. Even though I missed my goal by 55 seconds it was still a pr for me.

I like the course and the weather was the kind that we have all winter long up here in Oregon. There could not have been any more familiar and ideal weather conditions for me.

All and all it was a lot of fun and worth the trip. Next time I am determined to reach both of my goals.