OK, so today's goal was to pace Benjamin Pachev in on his first run of any kind longer than 10 miles. It was hard to do the math for some reason, but I knew that if I started running at 5:30 at Provo Towne Center I could go up 8.5 and catch MM9 52 minutes into the race, just before he passed it, assuming that it was 2 miles to the finish line from PTC. Which it wasn't. So my careful pacing plan went out the window and I just ran up the canyon to Timp park at 8.25. And to my surprise the leaders were passing right at that moment! I had never had the pleasure of accompanying the leaders this far into the race, usually being dropped by mile 2:), so I took advantage. I had to go at a 4:36 pace for a bit to catch up to Josh and Jonathan, who were running flawlessly in sync. It was awesome to behold, the perfect form, the submaximal effort. I ran out front for a little while but then I realized I needed to keep the speed in the tank for Ben so I dropped back in the gravel and tried to jog down SLOWLY. Then Jake came by, and Riley, and Matt, all looking really good, except Jake looked better than everyone, and with each person it was really hard to keep it slow, in fact I kept getting down in the 5s by accident. A group of 4 guys came by and I figured that Ben could be coming up any moment. So I ran backwards for a bit to see if I could see him. It turns out that the fastest I can run backwards is about a 5:40. I almost had a most embarrassing moment right there at mile 8. I saw Karl, then I was at mile 9. Waiting. For only about 2 minutes yikes he is moving! Looking kind of hashed but hanging in there great.
Turns out Sasha just couldn't let him run the first one solo, ha ha. So I joined the windbreak and hoped I still had the juice to keep up since they were running 5-10 seconds faster than I was in the Provo Half at this point. It was decently hard, but not too bad - perfect tempo pace! Ben went right up the hill and the finish line came into view. He was right at his max but the pace picked up to a punishing 5:44 for the last two miles, which put me into VO2max by the 13thmile. I backed off so they could cross the finish line without me falling over next to them and it was most triumphant! 1:15:26 is most impressive for a 14 year old. Then I realized that if I had actually entered the race I could have won Masters. ARRGH! Oh well it was really fun anyway. So I jogged the last 2 miles back to my car with them and Steve, including a 64 second quarter at mile 16.5 just because I was still feeling great. Had to run around the parking lot to get my First Ever 60 Mile Week! Woohoo! I still feel great. This is really psycho. Splits were 7:04 to 7:25 for the uphill 8, 6:30s for the trip back to MM9, 5:57,5:58,5:44,5:44 for the last 4 of the race, and 9s back to the car.
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