fueled by M&M's

First off, great job all SGM runners!!!  This site is so cool, and the race reports have been way helpful & motivational. I just got into the 2011 SGM runners series so it looks like I'm joining ya'll next year! (yikes, whimpering to myself as reality sets in. maybe all the reports of SGM runners running while dry heaving caused this lol.) So if they weren't handing out GU's at the SGM aid stations what did they hand out besides drinks? Bananas and Oranges at least?

Now the run report.   Vivian Park (Provo Canyon) to Utah Lake on the Provo River Trail.  Around 15 miles running with a 1 mile cool down.  This is my longest run to date.  I'm going to start focusing on logging a lot more miles (weekly) than I have been, so this is the start of all that...

Not too much to report on the run.  Long slow miles. Lots of pretty scenery. I stashed a water bottle at mile 6 that I carried until mile 9, which was a pain but very necessary, I still felt pretty dehydrated at the end of the run. Got "chicked" x2 at mile 8 due to my slowness. :)  Bill and I found out the hard way that the I-15 Provo River Trail Underpass is closed so you have to run a detour route for a mile or two. We ended up only running around 9:55 minutes/mile but it's a start.  Bill and I were pretty hammered at the end of the run but I think this was a good step forward.

Peace out! - Peaks out!

3.5 @ 8:34, rockin' the AF gold's.... the gym temperature felt like i was doing a hot yoga workout (just using my imagination here, not speaking from personal experience) so I got outta there asap.  

 Vivian Park to Utah Lake run, second week running this route.  14 miles at 9:30ish pace.  

Fun charity race.  I'm glad I made the drive up to Kaysville for this one. 

6.2 @ 8:28 min/mile.  I didn't have the best day of running, which I'm sure is a direct result from my lack of training for the last 3 weeks or so.  I ended up walking for about 30 seconds mid race after a hill.  When I crossed the finish line the clock said 48:20 and I knew I hadn't been that fast.  And then I got an "unofficial time" results card that said 43:08 (6:56) which was good for a laugh! (i'm keeping the card handy for bragging sessions at the water cooler, lol) By that night the official corrected results were online.

On a sidenote I signed up for the 2011 Utah Valley Full Marathon today!  Which will be my first full marathon ever.  (so it's time to kick my training up a huge notch) I'm going to sign up for all of my 2011 races now, since Boston and the SGM Marathon Runners Series filled up so fast I'm sure 2011 will be a way popular year for all running events.

~ Peaks out 

4mi around the neighborhood.  

Running in my Free Run's makes my Brooks Launch shoes feel like the Cadillac of all running shoes.  So much more supportive and cushioned than the Nikes. Maybe if I dropped 10-15lbs the free runs wouldn't need to absorb so much impact.

4.5mi sloooow.  Moonlight running in my Lehi hood.  I ran on mostly unlit backroads but the moon was pretty bright so no problems seeing my surroundings.  Plenty of skunk smell along the way, not sure what's up with that, but no direct skunk attacks. :)

Another late night running session around Lehi.  The moon was covered by clouds for the whole run, but there was enough light on the back roads to get by...

My 2nd half marathon ever.  Overall I felt pretty good and I'm getting a bit faster each race.  I opted to skip wearing a watch so I would stop worrying about my splits and just go with how I'm feeling and enjoy the race, that plan ended up working out pretty well imo.

Super chilly at Aspen Grove.  I stayed in the tent until about 20 minutes before the race.  A lot of really cool, creative costumes.  At the starting line group up I'm pretty sure I saw bloggers Allie, Lily and one other guy from the blog talking pre-race. (the guy was the 1:55 pacer for the race, I'll have to track down his name) I chickened out on introducing myself to any of them since I'm pretty sure our conversation would be "hi, I really like your blogs.  you guys are awesome runners... well, have a good race"  Pretty sure Allie was wearing crocs so I'm not sure what's up with that.  Also, saw one dude running the entire race barefoot, right on man, i think... Bring on the pain when you step on a sharp rock...

On to the race...

The start was slow slow, so many people.  And some hippie cameraman parked his Matt Folley "van down by the river" van in the middle of the road to catch footage at the start, which blocked two thirds of the road, sort of annoying.  Also (very fun race, just listing my complaints) the race directors should have skipped putting huge orange cones in the middle of the road from Aspen Grove to Sundance.  I saw one poor lady completely biff it over one cone.  A few people, including myself, slowed down to make sure she was okay.

The early miles down Sundance Canyon went fast, I let gravity do the work for me until we hit Provo Canyon.  Slowed down slightly once we hit Provo Canyon.  At mile 8 the 1:50 pacers caught up to me.  I followed them until almost mile 10 but I'm pretty sure they were going a tad faster than 8:23 min/mile so it was wearing me out so they dropped me.  Also, a 9 year old in a Superman costume was ahead of me for the entire race, he dropped me (too) at mile 10.  He must come from a big time running family, or actually be another child from Krypton. That's about it for the race I held an okay pace through the finish.  Found my family, grabbed my clothing bag and got out of there.  Super fun well organized race.

I'll get my approximate splits from Bill and I'll post those later today...

 ~ Peaks out