Not sure of my place or my exact time (seconds), but I will update it when the folks at Striders post it. Super early morning wake-up call for this one. Caught a 3:30 AM bus at the U. stadium then had over an hour to kill before the 5:30 AM race start. Hanging out with Stephen Gonzalez at the start...he tried to pee in the woods, but a female forest ranger shined a spotlight on him and asked him to stop...true story. We watched this lady for about 15 minutes afterwards. She would sit in the dark then as some guy got ready to pee she would turn on the spotlight and yell at them! Awesome. After that bit of excitement, we did a short warm-up run then lined up for the race. Nice to see so many fellow bloggers at the start.
Mile 1: 5:59 Nice easy pace with steep downhill. Stephen and I were pretty deep and behind in a pack. We talked Pirate baseball for the next few miles Mile 2: 5:57 Mile 3: 5:53 (probably the biggest drop of the entire race) Mile 4: 6:10 Mile 5: 6:20 Lost Stephen while he made a pit stop and slowed a little so he could catch back up Mile 6: 6:35 So begins the climb up Little Mountain Mile 7: 7:20 We were focusing on catching the lead girl, Annie, at the top. Mile 8: 6:52 We are now a pack of 3. Mile 9: 6:14 Mile 10: 6:41 This is the turn up Pine View(?). I was not expecting this! It sucked, but everyone had to run it. Took a GUI and salt tablet Mile 11: 6:03 Back down the canyon! Mile 12: 6:10 Mile 13: 6:11 Our 13.1 split was 1:23:00. Right on pace Mile 14: 6:19 Really cool rainbow over the entire city
Mile 15: 6:21 Lost Stephen to another potty break, so Annie and I ventured alone. I would not see Stephen again until he finished (but he had a good race) Mile 16: 6:29 Short climb up above the zoo, but felt good Mile 17: 6:25 Good downhill before you hit the rollers on Wasatch and Foothill Mile 18: 6:44 Slow, but had a GUI and another salt tablet Mile 19: 6:26 Mile 20: 6:41 So begins the slow climb on Foothill Mile 21: 7:08 The hill on Foothill close to Sunnyside is not super steep, but it took a good toll on me. I knew I was in trouble when I saw this split (it was going to be work to get sub 2:50) Mile 22: 6:18 Very nice downhill before you hit 1300 East Mile 23 6:49 1300 East! Little climb to get on South Temple Mile 24 6:46 My friend Craig picked me up here and ran the rest of the race with me. I was counting on sub 6:30 during this section, but I was cooked Mile 25: 6:56 Miriam, another running friend, had an ice cold sponge waiting on me...heaven! Also, I saw several more running friends during this stretch (they ran the 10K earlier that morning)
Mile 26: 7:20 Ouch. OK, this race needs to end. Unfortunatley, I hit 26.22 on the Garmin, but still had 0.13 to go. I would have made the sub 2:50 goal if I could have run the tangents better! Mile 26.22: 2:23. Second half 1:28. 5 minutes slower than the first half which is not that bad considering the course. Total time 2:51:30 (estimate on the seconds). Elizabeth and kids were there to greet me at the finish line. Annie, female winner, was just a couple of minutes back. Stephen arrived couple of minutes later.
According to my friends, I was the first Hoka shoe finisher...lol. Overall, A good race. Well organized and saw lots of bloggers. I wanted to be a little faster, but maybe at St. George I can get that 2:45:00. Now, its off to work! Luckily, I'm not sore, but that will probably change on Wednesday.
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