Well, another race today, and no better way to get a workout in. My wife had never done a 10K before and she found out about this one, wanted to do it, and signed us both up. I wasn't planning on doing another race before Provo Canyon, but like I said there is not an easier way to get a workout in. We picked up Jon and drove over to Garland, I had never been there before, but found out the other day that I will be there a lot this fall. I was assigned to student teach over there after USU had a bunch of problems placing us in the Logan district. My plans have been to student teach at Logan High for the last year, but plans have now changed. Bear River has some good potential with Cross Country kids and I might be able to help them out a bit, so that is exciting.
I warmed up with Jon before the race on the course. We got attacked by a big black lab about the size of Gill, but a 1000 times more mean. I even hit that thing right between the eyes with a rock the size of a golf ball and it still kept after us. Finally the neighbor rescued us.
My plan for the race was to stay with Jon and run a good hard training run/race, and hopefully 1,2 the race. I have been really sore the last couple of days so I knew it wasn't a world record setting day anyways. Besides, I wasn't planning on doing this race in the first place. All the High Schoolers took off like crazy, usual start to a race. Jon and I moved up into the lead at about 3/4 of a mile and Chris Brower ( a 17 year old who placed right between Jon and Cody at the Freedom run) came with us. We ran together for the whole first half. It was an out and back course on the highway. I settled into a good pace with Jon and really didn't think that Chris would hang on since he was breathing so hard. But Chris played us pretty good, and at the turn around he took off and put about 15- 20 seconds on us in the next half mile. Jon went with him and I just couldn't seem to get the old sore legs to switch gears. I finally caught back up to Jon, but he dropped back not too long after that. I just couldn't get my body to go any faster, kind of like what Sasha had trouble with at Sandy 10K. I also didn't really care about that race either, so my race mentality was turned off and I was in training mode.
I kept waiting for Jon to come up on me, and maybe then I could have got more motivation to kick it down and catch that kid, but Jon never came up, although I could hear him just behind me. I guess at one point in the last 1/4 mile Jon got on my heals, but I never saw him because we were weaving through 5Kers and walkers. I finished in 36:12. Chris never gained anymore time and ended up about 15 seconds ahead of me and Jon was about 4 seconds back. We ran out in 18:30 and I was 17:42 coming back. It was a good run, eventhough I couldn't kick it into that race gear. If Jon would have come up on me I probably would have let him go, but who knows, maybe I wouldn't have let him beat me anyways. The course wasn't super difficult, but it definitely isn't a PR course, times were slow.
I cooled down with Jon back to where Allison was and then ran in with her. She did really good for her first 10K and finished in 1:01: 34 . I talked to Chris and the cross country coaches after and got to know them a little bit, I might get to know them quite well this fall. We got a Chuck Wagon Breakfast with our entry, and all three of us got a decent prize. We came away with a pass to a fun park and a free Chiropractic adjustment, not bad "winnings". Plus we all got our awards. It was a fun small town race, and they do a good job with it, not to mention you get your money's worth.
(Adrenaline-290 miles) (Fastwitch -53 miles) | 