My friend in the ward told me about this race. Her husband organizes it (he is a firefighter for Sandy). She'd talked to me a lot about it and since it was a good cause, a good day to get some tempo miles in and an honest half (I'd come to find out just HOW honest!) I figured I might as well.
A couple weeks ago my nephew decided that he would run it with me as his first half. He has been doing XC and I've LOVED watching his meets. He has been running 8-10 for training days, so I knew he could make a half. He runs his meets a low 19:XX so I knew a 7:30-7:40 pace would be a good clip for him to handle for a half, but not kill him.
My friend Steph who is running SGM as her first half also got drug into running this with me :) Then to confuse y'all Steph is my friend from the ward who told me about it. They are both Steph H - so you'll just have to figure it out :)
At the beginning a guy came up to me and recognized me from Des News and asked me if I was pacing anyone :) Nope, just myself. Sometimes it is a blessing, other times a curse that people can easily pick me out of a crowd.
Aaron (my nephew) and Steph (SGM) and I lined up. How cool! They have you start in the bay of the fire station! It was awesome. But, no chip timing. I figured I wouldn't be anywhere near winning (they only do overall mens and womens - no AG), so I hung out in the back. It took a good 15-20 seconds to get started and out of the slow moving crowd. As soon as we hit the street I took off to pace and just kept it up, despite the first hill coming right away.
I knew Steph would be a bit behind me, but Aaron kept right at my heels. At mile one (he is good at checking mile splits) he noticed we were right on pace. I think he was hoping it wouldn't feel that hard :) We got a bit of a break before the hills started for good. This is a seriously tough half. I think probably the hardest I've done. Now, it is a loop course, so I guess essentially it is flat, but I certainly didn't feel downhills anything like I did the uphills! I would say there were only 2-3 good downhill pushes that were short. The rest was flat or uphill. But, then again, a half in Sandy that is primarily E-W and not very N-S would have to be hilly.
I didn't know how many women were in front of me and I wasn't really passing many people on the first few miles of uphill, but when I got to the top of the hills I passed one female and could see the pink lady not that far off. We got a HUGE downhill push, only maybe 50yds, but heck! I was taking advantage of it. I passed pinky and put some space between us as I caught some of the guys ahead on the flatter part. I was just feeling good and pushing along when the wind started...ugh! One burst blew my tank and skirt up! Aaron said he didn't see anything, just heard me scream :) It was a little frightening to have such a crazy burst of wind. It wasn't easy to push through.
Around mile 7 Aaron started falling back and I could tell I was needing fuel. We'd talked about gu before hand and I was a little hesitant to tell Aaron to use it, but I took half and gave the rest to the aid station volunteer (a fireman at the other Sandy station!) and said "give this to the kid behind me, tell him he NEEDS to take it." I also shouted back to Aaron, but left the instructions as well in case Aaron didn't hear or understand!
At that point I knew I was running solo and plugged into the ipod to be able to stop listening to my breathing. Before I knew it we were at mile 9 and on another downhill and I pushed past 2 guys I'd been following for a while. I wasn't feeling exhausted, but it certainly wasn't easy either. Comfortably hard. Just like it should be for MP tempo, right?
Then...Sego Lily Dr came. Luckily we had an aid station just as we started, but my 7MM quickly turned to 10MM...or it felt that way. The hills up this road were crazy ridiculous! Sasha had once asked me if on hills I kept up with others, pulled ahead, or dropped back. On races like this I try to pay attention (since I didn't know at the time). Well, I'm happy to say that despite being horribly slow, I passed 5 people on Sego Lily Dr! FIVE. When I passed the last guy as we turned and hit the last aid station, I couldn't see anyone in front of me. I was having to pay attention to the signs! It was a little weird for me. It wasn't that I was in first place, it was just that the race was small enough I couldn't see anyone in front of me. Crazy!
Just after mile 12 we hit the last good downhill. Oh, it felt good! I was just hitting a good recovering pace. I didn't feel like I was killing it, but just keeping equal effort from my uphill, but controlled breathing :) Then, when I turned R off that street I recognized where we were and I knew I only had this last little bit to the finish. Wow, I was done. I passed mile 13 marker and pushed into the finish and there was a good crowd cheering. Felt great!
My goal for the race was 7:30AP...so 1:37ish. I figured that was kind of blown out of the water with the uphills, but I thought I'd at least be under 1:40. Nope. My bubble kind of burst. They told me I was 2nd place female and that was neat, but I was bummed with my time. Can I really hit my 7:30 AP goal at SGM? This was a 7:43AP which is better than my pace last year at SGM, but I want it closer to 7:30. Stink. I had a hard time reconciling this in my head. I'm still not completely all sorted out about it all, but I'm feeling a little better. Not like a fat, slow runner like I did after this race. It just stinks when you don't hit your goals. I don't care if I was 1st place. It is a competition with me...no one else.
Just a few minutes behind me I saw Aaron coming in. He had a good finish push and I was impressed that pinky hadn't passed him. I was the only girl that passed him (we never saw 1st place female at 1:36 finish time). I was going to tell him not to get chicked, but he has his pride and wouldn't let her :) He finished his FIRST half marathon (with no specific training other than XC) in 1:45:17. WOW! SO impressed. Then just a tad latter Steph came screamining into the finish. 6th overall female and 1:54 which is a great time for this course. I told her I'm confident she can hold that pace at SGM. She wasn't sure about that, but I am! Finally Steph (from the ward) came in around 2:10. She hadn't done much running, but is an aerobics/spinning instructor so she can bust out halfs with no problem. It was great to sit and visit with everyone afterward!
Gave Aaron some tips to strech out his ITB that was bugging him a bit and then grandma took him off to do banking stuff and we didn't get breakfast or anything afterward :( but, it was a great race! Aaron was 11th male and I got some earphones and a $15 road ID gift certificate for my efforts.
Now, it is time to settle down and settle in for SGM! Bring it on baby.
Oh, when I got home and looked up Allie's finish time for TOU....I started SCREAMING! My husband ran in the room and said "whats wrong?!?" He thought I was dying :) I was just SO excited! Not only had she won, but she broke 2:45!!! Oh man. That girl is amazing. SO proud of her. Way to go Allie!!!!
AP: 7:43 splits: 7:29, 7:50, 8:47 (200ft+), 7:30 (100ft+), 7:04, 7:17, 8:03, 7:43, 7:20 (100ft-), 8:11 (120ft+), 9:12 (200ft+), 7:40, 6:53 (130ft-), 6:37 (last .1 to finish). If I didn't put an elevation +/- then it was relatively flat between the gain and loss. Well, less than 50 feet difference according to the inaccurate garmin.
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