I warmed up for a mile and a half before the race. At the starting line I looked around to see who the competition was and didn't recognize too many people. When the gun went off several guys, including half the high school kids took off like crazy. I thought I might have quite the race on my hands, but after the first 3/10s of a mile I had pulled up on the leader and started to push the pace. The first mile was all uphill and into a stiff canyon wind, but I held steady with a 5:45 pace. After the first mile I realized that I was on my own, because everyone had dropped back and I was still separating myself from them. When I knew that I had the race in the bag I settled into more of a hard tempo pace and stuck with 5:45s. It was just me and the lead Cop car for most of the race, and we chatted quite a bit since both of us were a little bored. I finished strong but had no reason to kick at all, because 2nd place was way back. I came in at 17:48 (5:44 pace), not that great of a time, but for being solo on a tough course I'll take it. There are only two other guys that have run under 18 minutes on that course in the last 10 years (both University runners), so my time was more than fitting for the win. It was nice to win big, but I would have rather it been a close race with several decent runners to push me. I wanted to see how I would run on a course that is similar to Striders 5K now that I am in a decent shape. I figured if they changed that course and ran it backwards I could have run quite a bit faster with the same effort. I figure I was at about 5:25 effort for a semi flat course, so I did alright.
Cooled down on the course after my big win, and ran with some family and friends and helped them in. Fun morning! I even won a couple of prizes, which never happens. I spent the rest of the day with family going to Ute Stampede (Nephi) and Steel Days (American Fork) celebration stuff. Good easy day, but I missed my long run with with my Logan friends this morning.
(Fastwitch -29 miles) | 