I ran the 20 mile up/down route between the mouth of Provo Canyon and the top of South Fork with Tom, Kerry, and Greg. We started about 6:30am just as it was getting light. The temperature was around 36 degrees, but there was a cold canyon breeze. The other three all wore long pants. I had mine in the car, but my legs were only kind of cold, not really cold, so I didn't put them on. I was afraid they would be too warm at the end. In hindsight, I probably should have worn them. It never did get real warm before we finished. Ah well, I feel like I had a good run anyway. We averaged 8:57/mi up to Vivian Park. At this point, Kerry wanted to give is sore knee a break so he got on his bike he had stashed there earlier. Even though the road gets quite a bit steeper starting up South Fork, Tom and Greg started up at the same pace we had been going. I felt the extra effort right away but managed to hang on. We only slowed 1 sec/mi and averaged 8:58/mi up to the Trefoil gate. After refueling at the top, we started down. It didn't take long for me to realize we were going to go down considerably faster than we came up. Greg had led strongly coming up, and took off at a strong pace to lead us back down. We averaged 7:42/mi back down to Vivian, then slowed slightly to 7:50/mi down to the gate just above Bridal Veil. It was along this stretch I felt myself getting tired and sloppy in my form. I decided to tighten up my form, shorten my stride slightly, and pick up my turnover rate a little. This little bit of focus really made a difference. I pulled slightly ahead then stopped and waited for the others at the gate. When we started up again I focused again and again started to pull away. I averaged 7:19/mi for about the next two miles. I could tell I was pushing too hard to finish at that pace so I backed off and ran the next mile or so at 7:48/mi to try and save something for the last mile. At one mile to go I picked the pace up slight to 7:40/mi for 1/2 mile. I then tried to take it up a gear and I averaged 6:54/mi for the final 1/2 mile. My Garmin showed 20.11 miles in 2:46:48, average pace 8:18/mi. I felt very good about the run. I held on through the difficult times and ended up finishing strong. I did feel a blister forming in the strike area of each foot near the end, but they weren't bad. My legs were pretty tired after the run, but they recovered pretty quickly. The best part was spending the morning with Tom, Kerry, and Greg. I also saw four other people I knew on the trail, including Doug Eddy. He looked good. It's good to see him getting enthused about running.
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