It was pleasant to run in slightly warmer weather today, and even more pleasant to far exceed my own expectations. I was exultant to finish the St. George marathon last October in 3:07. I had great plans to continue improving from there and run the Painter's half marathon in sub-1:30. Then came the PF and Achilles problems, shoulder surgery, a couple of weeks of illness during the holidays, and frigid temperatures with often treacherous road conditions. My mileage has been way down, and I don't think I've run near a 7:00 pace for months. My plan was to have today's race be a tempo training run, to see where my fitness was. My goal was to average a sub-8:00 pace without aggravating any injuries. Nathan encouraged me to run with him starting at around a 7:30 pace. I decided I'd give it a go for a while and see how if felt. Very similar to last year, I managed to hang with Nathan until about mile 9 or 10 and then he pulled away. At that point last year I saw my buddy Wayne up ahead and chased him the rest of the way, finishing just behind him. This year I saw a runner I thought was Hal Amos, who used to always beat Tom (until today). Turns out it wasn't him, but at the time thinking it was motivated me to try to catch him. Not far from the end I saw Sasha running back up the course. I greeted him as he passed then heard him and some other bloggers encouraging Marcie along, who I had passed around mile 10 or 11 I think, but who was now gaining on me with their encouragement. I don't feel very gentlemanly now, but at the time I kidded Sasha about encouraging one blogger to pass another, told him that she was going to have to earn it, picked up the pace to kick to the finish. Just as I started pushing harder I realized I was passing the guy I had been gradually gaining on for the past two miles (who I thought was Hal Amos...the real Hal Amos beat me by 5 minutes). So in reality Sasha and the other bloggers who were encouraging Marcie helped me as well...although I should have been more chivalrous and let her chick me. I think at least eight other women chicked me, so what's one more.
Anyway, between running with Nathan, chasing "Hal Amos", and trying to avoid getting chicked by Marcie, I ended up finishing in 1:32, a course PR four minutes faster than last year. As has been mentioned on other blogs, the race distance was actually closer to 12.95 miles, not 13.1, but I was still faster than last year. I was very pleased, almost shocked, and very relieved that I had managed to retain that much fitness through the valley I've been in since the marathon last October. My splits (from my Garmin) were:
1 - 7:17 2 - 7:13
3 - 6:54 4 - 7:01 5 - 6:59 6 - 7:12 7 - 7:07 8 - 7:25 9 - 7:11 10 - 6:46 11 - 7:20 12 - 7:11 13 - 6:38 for 0.93 mi (7:07/mi) Overall time: 1:32:12 (7:07/mi) | 