Paul, Cody, and Dan stayed at my in-laws with me on Friday night. It was kind of fun and relaxing to have my buddies with me the night before, and we only had a 15 minute drive to the busses in the moring.
The start was cool but not too cool, definitly the warmest marathon start I remember. I didn't think the heat would play a big factor in my race because I would get in early enough, but I was wrong, it got hot in the last few miles!
I started out with Ted and Jeff Shadley, running the first mile in 6:08. I ran with those two for the first 14 miles, which made it nice. I wasn't quite sure how I would feel, I never do because so much can happen to your body and mind over 26.2 miles. I am not going to tell you my splits because no one really cares, including me now, but I was on PR pace at half 1:20:20ish.
I ran with Ted and Jeff until we hit the climb up around the Res., and then Jeff pushed about a 20 second lead on me in the next couple of miles, and Ted followed him and stayed right in between us. I was still feeling alright at about 16 miles and was just under 1:40:00, so I knew if I could hold on my PR was right there but it would be really close. The problem was that I was getting tired and everyone around me started to dwindle off too. It started to get hot and I could really feel it, even going down the canyon with some shade.
At about mile 18 I caught up to Ted and asked him to stay with me but he said that he was hurting and was just going to try to hold on. I averaged 6:00s or better all the way down the canyon and started to fight off the mind games. I would look at my watch one mile and think that there was no way that I would PR, and the next mile would pass and I would think I was going to do it. I played the mind games for the last 10 miles of the race.
At 23 miles, when we hit the trail, I caught Steve Olsen and asked him if he was doing alright, he never responded so I moved on. Jeff was still about 30-40 seconds ahead of me and Walter Brown was up there too, but I couldn't keep them in sight because of the winding of the trail. I had been hydrating well and had popped a couple of GUs along the way, and every aid station I would dump water down the back of my neck to stay cool. I was getting hot but I fought off everything, heat, fatigue, pain, etc. until mile 24. I was still on pace for a PR and even had a bit of a cushion, but my legs started to get heavy. I was trying to push but it felt like I was getting slower and slower. My 6:00 minute pace fell apart and I struggled in at 6:25-6:30 pace for the last 2.2 miles. I had given it a good shot but was just trying to finish at that point. I did catch Walter with a 1/2 mile to go and heard some people in the crowd telling me that I was going to be top 10, I thought that they must have been confused with all the 1/2 marathoners and relay runners that were coming in. When I hit the finish line I was bummed a bit because the clock said I was just a couple of seconds under 2:43:00. But because of the false start the clock was wrong and my watch was right, 2:42:25. I hadn't died off as bad as I had thought. I was just glad to finish by then and didn't know if could have run any further.
The first person to greet me out of the shute was Paul's wife Stacy and she told me that Paul had won. I was so excited for him, and went and gave him a hug while he was being mauled by the media. I stuck around the shute to see Cody, Ted, Nate Pollard, Bill, Dan, and others come in. Everyone came in good, and most people were just glad to finish like me.
I ran about as good as I could today, I fell a little short in the last couple of miles, but I am pleased with my effort. I have never done a spring marathon and wasn't even goig to do Odgen until three weeks ago. It was probably close to my best effort in a marathon and I will take it. I ended up 9th overall and 2nd in the age, and with a time that is my second best. Overall the race was a good experience. I was also happy for all of my friends, WBR teamates, and other bloggers who ran well in the races today. Paul was the story of the day, dominating a comeback marathon with a PR and a 3minute course record. Congrats to him and everyone who ran so well and trained so hard!
I will now take most of the next week off, do a reverse taper, and work on gettting some 5k and 10 k speed back. I will do that until end of July or the first part of August. I will need some good up and down hill training for my nasty legs at Wasatch back. But for now it is all about doing nothing for a few day!
(Tangent-141 miles) | 