Ran 7 miles to warm up, including running the course backwards. Not really high quality miles for half of them. I was the race director of this event for the past four years, so this was the transitional year of me handing it off, so I had to check in with the registration area and make sure everything was flowing smoothly, so I just didn't have the time to get in the 10 miles before the race that I wanted to. I should have woken up earlier.
The race starts up a long hill. I am not sure on the grade but it's enough to slow you down and give you a nice downhill afterward. I wanted to stay within sight of the BYU lady pack (about 7 runners) but I knew they would be ahead of me. I also met a young lady at the starting line named Whitney (junior in college) who lives in the town next to me who has beat me in a couple of races. She is a strong runner. I wanted to be around 6:45 pace up the hill, then keep below 6:30 for the downhill and try to keep the 6:30 for the flatter end.
Up the hill I was feeling winded but fairly strong. I kept the fast girls in my sight. I was at about a 6:25 pace at the top of the hill at about .65 into the race. Right after the hill (at .84) I accidentally turned off my watch when my watch showed 6:14 lap pace so far (no mile markers that I could see) which messed up my split, but I realized it later. So my first split on my watch for 1 mile probably occurred at 1.3 or so and was 6:16. I felt strong going downhill in the second mile but kind of like in foreign territory, hard to keep up the pace for two miles in a row. My second split for mile 1.3-2.3 was 6:22, still pretty strong. I pass one BYU runner (YES!) in this mile, but get passed by another. In the last mile or so I found it hard to keep up pace, but knew I would break 20 minutes if I kept up my effort. With about .5 to go I passed Whitney from my neighboring town and another runner or two. My watch shows my last split as .84 in 5:14, or 6:14 pace.
19:36 baby! Best by far since college. I have not broken 20:30 since college so this is great!
I ran another 3 miles after the race, again low quality running around the track area, waiting for the awards, and my son who ran the .5 mile kids race wanted to stick around for the drawing. | 