I’ve spent some time thinking about how I feel about this
race and how I performed and have come to the conclusion that I’m thrilled with
how I did. My goal was a 1:15 but
that was a completely arbitrary number that I pulled out of the air and I
really had nothing to back up being able to do that. Second goal was a PR, so hey that’s always nice to meet some
goal, beat my ½ Marathon PR by almost 1 minute.
Slept OK last night, better than staying in a hotel
somewhere with the entire family in the room, so having the race 10 miles up
the road from my house was very nice. Woke up at 3:00 am got ready, drove to Ryan Jonson’s
house to meet him at 4:00, but I showed up 30 minutes early, I Sat in his front yard stretching and
jogging up and down the street for 30 minutes while I waited.
We drove to the buses got on what must have been an early
bus cause it was the nice LaBus with nice seats, The start area was kind of a mess, didn’t seem big enough
for everyone there, I only got one shot at the Porta Potty, that worried me a
little bit but I actually ended up OK.
The race was suppose to start promptly at 5:40 am, 5:40 came
along and they announced that we still were waiting on a few busses. Lot’s of grumbles from the crowd, I
actually don’t mind waiting around a bit, plus it was still pretty dark at 5:40
so I think the road could have been dangerous in the dark, the only thing I was
upset about was that I didn’t go to the bathroom one last time while waiting,
but when your lined up on the front row you don’t really want to leave.
Lined up with Ryan. The only “fast” person that anyone really recognized
was Justin Park (I think that’s his name, he ended up winning), the gun went
off about 6:00 am I would guess, I didn’t have my watch set to time. I figured from the race report of the
American Fork ½ that there would be people taking off at sub 5:00 pace but
everyone was going pretty slow, I know cause I was in second position at about
¼ mile. There were 6 of us in the
lead group and everyone was very chatty, that bothered me cause I was thinking
how hard it was to even breath and these guys were chatting about the
weather. Justin and another guy
finally split away and took the lead, Ryan and 2 other guys started a little
group of 3, and I created my own group of 1 about 50 yards behind them.
I was actually hitting my splits right around how I had
thought I should, 5:30 – 5:40
pace, kept questioning if that was
the right pace, didn’t really know if I should go faster and try to catch up to
Ryan, or go slower and save myself a little bit. But all and all I felt OK, breathing was a little heavy but
I was hanging in there. I was
really enjoying the canyon but kept telling myself it was going to get bad out
of the canyon, at around mile 7 I passed one of the guys from the pack of 3, we
chatted some, kept alternating position but eventually he fell back. That gave me a little bit of confidence
to know that I had actually passed someone, this put me in 5th overall, I seriously
questioned being able to hold that position for 5 more miles but kept pushing
through. Once I reached the bottom
of the canyon I could tell the heat would be an issue. Heat over all other things is my
nemesis, every race I’ve every done I just completely crash as soon as the sun
comes up. I’m not sure what I need
to do to get over that, I’ve struggled with heat exhaustion as long as I can
remember, whether it’s riding bikes, running or what ever. Anyway, it got hot, and humid. Then I got to the trail by the Golf
course, I had no idea there were up hills on this course, I should have rode it
on my bike or something. That
first hill, I seriously thought I was going to collapse, my calf started to
tighten up and I realized then that 1:15 wasn’t going to happen even though I
was still on pace to do so.
I switched from race mode to survival mode at around
8.5, I was planning on this
happening around the 10 mile mark but I was still happy I pushed through as
hard as I did for that long. I
don’t remember a whole lot threw here, I passed a few of the full Marathon
people, and passed 1 person that I thought was maybe one of the guys ahead of
me but I couldn’t remember. At
11.5 I got passed by someone, I tried to keep up but he had kicked into a different
gear, and then at 12 a friend of his met him and paced him the rest of the way,
I didn’t have a chance.
Turned the corner at 13 feeling pretty dead, but my wife
tells me I always look slow coming down the home stretch so I decided to speed
up and bit and put on a show for the kids, ran all the way across the street to
high five my kids (they love that) and then I was done.
So the only thing I’m really mad about this race about is
that somehow they really jacked up the timing, Ryan and I weren’t even on the
printed result sheet so we went and complained, They had manually written my
number down in 5th place but didn’t have Ryan at all (he finished 3rd
overall at 1:13:59) eventually
they said they found both of our names in the computer with chip times (1:16:51
for me) but they weren’t on the official results sheet. They tried to give Ryan’s 3rd
place prize away to someone else, but he went and complained and they fixed it,
they did end up giving my age group plaque to someone else and told me they
would make me a new one and send it to me. I’m not sure how they made such a mess of it, I only new 3 people, Me, Ryan, and
Allie and somehow all of our results got messed up. Allie took 3rd overall but they tried to give it
to someone else. I think she was
angry and left before all that anyway.
All and all, a good race, not quite as “easy” as I had
imagined, I wish I would have ran the last 7 miles earlier cause I wasn’t
expecting all those hills and turns at all. Based on the fact I have been out with a stress fracture all
summer and only been running for 4 weeks I’m very pleased with the result. Who would have thought I could come
back and get a PR that soon after recovering from a stress fracture. Pretty sure I have a 1:15 in me but I
don’t have any other races set until St. George Marathon due to work conflicts
with all the other races coming up. | Distance | Time | Avg Pace
| | | | | 1 | 5:26 | 5:26 | | | | | 2 | 11:09 | 5:43 | | | | | 3 | 17:00 | 5:51 | | | | | 4 | 22:44 | 5:44 | | | | | 5 | 28:08 | 5:24 | | | | | 6 | 33:33 | 5:25 | | | | | 7 | 39:04 | 5:31 | | | | | 8 | 44:47 | 5:43 | | | | | 9 | 51:08 | 6:21 | | | | | 10 | 57:26 | 6:18 | | | | | 11 | 1:03:37 | 6:11 | | | | | 12 | 1:10:10 | 6:33 | | | | | 13 | 1:16:24 | 6:14 | | | | | 13.1 | 1:16:52 | 5:28 | | | | | Total | 1:16:52 | 5:53 | | | |
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