It was a beautiful Saturday morning...finally. I met Wayne, Kevin, Larry, and Larry's wife Jolene at the mouth of Provo Canyon for a long run. It was cool enough with the breeze at the start that I wore my jacket and gloves. Larry's health still doesn't allow him to run as much as he would like. We ran 3.8 easy miles with him, with a little walking mixed in, averaging about 12:00/mi. Larry and Jolene stopped to turn back at Bridal Veil Falls. Kevin, Wayne and I continued on. We had realized the Provo City Marathon was running down the trail this morning until we saw some of the mile markers. We didn't know what time they were starting or how many runners there would be. We got to Vivian Park and talked to some volunteers at the aid station there. The marathon was going to start in about 10-15 minutes at South Fork Park. We were planning on 14 miles and still had a little over a mile to go to get to 7, so we decided to risk it and head on up South Fork Canyon. At mile 7 Wayne said he wanted to push on to 8 for a 16 mile run and Kevin and I decided to join him. Not long after we saw the lead marathoners coming around a corner. We moved to the far side of the street and stayed pretty much out of the way. There weren't as many runners as we thought there might be and they passed by us pretty quickly. The race had just started so they hadn't spread out very much yet. We continued on to the 8 mile mark, averaging about 9:42/mi for the 4.2 miles of uphill after Bridal Veil. We could tell Kevin could have going faster, but Wayne and I were concerned about having enough energy left to finish the 8 mile return trip so we didn't push it. Kevin pushed ahead at about Bridal Veil and ran the next 3 miles about a minute per mile faster than us. Wayne pushed ahead of me a little before Timpanogos Park. I averaged 8:29/mi for the 8 miles back down, and that was plenty good for me at the end of my longest long run, and highest mileage week, of the year so far.
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