Canyonlands Half Marathon. This was my 5th time running this race, and I finally got the win this year. We had great day to run...mid-50s at start, mid-60s at finish, with a slight tailwind at times. So it got a bit warm in the direct sun, but for Moab that's about as good as it gets.
I forgot to wear my watch to the start, so that will make this entry pretty short. Based on my 15:44 5K last weekend, race calculators projected me in the low-1:12s, so my goal was to break 1:12.
Without the watch, though, I had no idea of pace, so I just ran by what felt right. Turned out to be a good move. I had broken away by the end of the first mile, and ended up winning by nearly 3 minutes. My pace never felt that quick, plus I died the last couple miles (as usual...that course has a grueling, boring finish), so I was very (pleasantly) surprised to cross the finish line and see that I ran under 1:10 (1:09:41 officially). It's always nice to break your goal time by 2 minutes. So I may have to do the no-watch thing more often. The favorable wind also surely helped, although may have been canceled by the temperature...I could feel myself speed up every time I ran through shade!
So it was a really nice race for me. Beat by previous best Canyonlands time by about 2:30, and I may have to count this as my "non-downhill altitude PR" as well, as my previous best was 1:09:50 at The Other Half back in 2009.
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