UTAH VALLEY MARATHON 2015
I signed up for this race the day I took a DNF because of a calf injury at Phoenix Marathon. Training was going well until 4 weeks out when I had a recurrance of the same calf injury and then I was not able to run again until about 10 days before this race when I basicly just did a 10 day taper. I left my home Wednesday night and drove up to Cedar City so I could sleep one extra night at altitude. Thursday morning I did a 2 mile easy run with 4 strides of about 100 meters each, then drove up to Provo. Friday I golfed 18 holes up in Midway with a good buddy of mine who I had not seen for many years...not the smartest thing the day before a race, but freinds a more important then even runnning and I'm glad I did it.
Saturday morning I picked up my brother-in-law Dan at 3:45 and we headed to pick up the bus. After a LONG bus ride we got off and found a fire to sit around and chat until the race started. While dropping off our race bags I said to Dan, "The only thing that I wish, is that I would have seen Smooth." I took a few steps away from the Uhal and there was Smooth. I gave her a big hug and me pre-race was complete. I'm so glad I got to see her. She looked great!
We lined up and realized there was no pacer for 3:10 or 3:15. Dan wanted to run 3:15 so I told him I would be the pacer. We were standing around, and I was waiting for some anouncement or the national anthem and all the sudden we heard a gun go off and people started running. So we were off without any fanfare.
The first 7 miles of this race are super easy with a pretty steady downhill. The key here is not going too fast. We kept our pace nice and easy. Then the hills start. For the next 10 miles it is up and down the whole way. I forgot how many climbs there are on this course.
Digressing a bit. Around mile 6 my calf started tightening up. By mile 11 it was hurting bad enough that I told Dan, that if I didn't finish because of my calf, I would just meet him at his house after the race.
We hit the halfway point at 1:38:11 (7:30 avergae pace), a little slower pace than I thought we had run, but besides the growing pain in my calf, I felt perfect, like I had just had a good warmup. Now I knew I had to run a negative split to reach the 3:15 BQ goal, so I dropped the pace when possible (on the downhills) for the next 6 or 7 miles. Unfortunately that dropped Dan right away as well. Right after the halfway mark I remembered a text that Jeff sent me the day before the race. He said "quit thinking about your calf and go BQ." I started thinking about how great and powerful my good calf felf with every single step and before I knew it I wasn't feeling pain in my calf anymore. It was amazing.
I hit mile 21 at 2:36:06, an average pace of 7:20 over the miles since the haf point. My calf still felt fine, but I was starting to hit a mental dark place so I downed the 5 Hour Energy I had with me and within a half mile I was back in a much better place mentally. Also right about mile 21 a guy creeped paced me and said a word of encouragement. I tucked in behind him until I felt better and then he started to fade a bit and I ran up just past him and said, "Lets do this together and finish strong." We worked together the rest of the race. We were a perfect team. When one of us would start to fade a bit the other would push the pace and we just kept switching back and forth. At mile 25 my calf started aching again and I tried focusing on the good calf again, but it only helped a little this time. I was just hoping and praying that I wouldn't give out so close to the finish and it didn't. I happily crossed the finish line right behind the guy I was working with in 3:14:27 for a 7:23 pace over the last 10K and a 1 minute 55 second negative split!
While this was far from my fastest marathon I have run, I think it was the best marathon I have run as far as maximizing my finishing time relative to my fitness level. I think if I had run the first half of the marathon any faster I would not have had made my 3:15 goal. I did BQ, but I highly dought the 33 seconds faster than my BQ time will be fast enough to get me into Boston next year.
| 