Great race for me! I was really dead this week after the Salt Lake Marathon last Saturday where I pulled a hamstring. I didn't do a ton of miles this week, but I did try to run enough to flush out the yuck from my muscles. I massaged things hard and rolled some stiffness out last night. My hamstring issue was major enough to stop me from running at mile 20 of the SL, but is mostly healed (knock on wood) and I feel really blessed to have been able to run this race today.
I ran the first four miles with my friend Paul Clark. We kept a good pace at about 7:20. This is an out and back course that is really the worst section of the Ogden Marathon...twice. Today I felt I understood and experienced the concept of the slight lean forward as a means of propulsion. I just kept a slight lean into the road and the legs just kept turning over. I don't think my gait was very pretty, but it worked. I haven't looked into my exact splits, but I think for the most part I was between 7:12 and 7:32, but my average pace throughout hung right around 7:20 so I think my splits were fairly even.
I ended up 2nd in my age group (to Tom Kuehls who ended up 4th overall) and 19th overall out of 304 runners.
In the five race series, I cumulatively ended up with first place in my age division (because Tom was 3rd overall...go Tom!!). I'm so glad I was able to run today. I almost didn't go because it was my wife's first bike race and I was sore and tired. It ended up to be a great decision to race and then I drove as fast as I could to the bike race and was able to see my wife's four times on the course. She rocked the house, but we don't have the results yet. I won't be surprised if she placed.
Now it's time to recover and get everything back into equilibrium. So nice to have four weeks between now and Ogden. I am really hoping for a good time, but I've learned that a lot of things have to go right for a marathon to have a happy ending. | 