Bitter sweet victory today, more sweet than bitter but I’ll
get into that later, this is how I all went down. Starting weeks ago, so be prepared.
So after my fairly disappointing TOU performance in
September I had to take some time off, I went into that race injured, ran it
anyway and really beat myself up physically, it took me almost 4 week to get to where I could run normal
again, when I finally decided I could once again follow a formal running
schedule I decided to focus on speed over quantity so I started following a
pretty aggressive ½ marathon plan, with a race date of December 31st. I couldn’t actually find a local race
on that day so it was more theoretical.
I’ve been loosely following that schedule for about 4 weeks now, I was actually feeling really good 2
weeks into it, the best I had felt all year actually and really wanted to enter
a race. I wanted to do the Provo Halloween ½ last weekend but was told I
couldn’t since it was my wives race and I needed to support her. I was running with my neighbor a few
weeks ago and he told me he was training for a ½ marathon in Pocatello the
following week (Today) so I looked it up and decided it might be fun. The race was sold out at the time so I
sent an e-mail to the race director asking if there was a chance of getting in,
about 2 hours later I received an e-mail from him saying he had just opened up
10 more spots. I hurried and
registered via iPhone while drive (passenger) in a car, and got into the race. When my wife found out about me signing
up for it (behind her back) she was furious. I told her I just really needed to see if I could redeem
myself. My plan was to just drive
up by myself early this morning run the race and then drive home, but to my
surprise when I got home from work last night my wife said “lets all drive up
tonight and stay in a hotel so the kids can play in the pool” so I agreed,
threw the quickest marathon bag together in history and off we went.
Got to the hotel pretty quick, only took about 2.5 hours to
get there and went to the pool, while playing with the kids a guy walked in
with his kids and my wife came over and said “that guy looks fast” I went to
talk to him and see if he was running the race and found out it was none other
than Rob Murphy, small world. We talked a little bit and then I went
off to get some sleep. Slept
lousy, probably should have stayed home in my own bed, but it was nice to not
have to run after a 2.5 hour drive.
Not really sure which is worse but I woke up with a pretty bad kink in
my neck and went down to the hotel hot tub at 5:30am to loosen it up. That helped a bit. Had a small breakfast at the hotel and
then packed the car to go to the finish line for packet pickup, we were way
early so I decided to just have my wife drive me to the start line instead of
waiting for buses. She actually
told me “you better win this thing, I didn’t drive all this way for
nothing” I told her, there was a
fat chance of that happening, but thanks for the encouragement anyway, Got there about 1 ½ hours early
but it was warm up there and I had first shot at any Portapotty, nice. I took advantage of that about 3 times
and then found 1 bush as well.
Rob Murphy showed up shortly after and I talked with him some more, he
gave me lots of encouragement and good advice for my running career, about 30
minutes before the start Rob introduced me to Jeff Shadley, we all ran down the
canyon about ½ a mile together and chatted. That was a lot of fun to meet other bloggers in a new
setting.
Headed to the start line, lined up with Jeff and Rob, I
pretty much figured it was the 3 of us that would lead, Jeff told me the first
mile was quick and he had done that section in 4:45 before, I thought “oh crap”
then he said he wasn’t going to go that fast today though. “Oh good” since I wanted around
5:30ish. Gun went off without even
a count down and we took off, a
few guys flew by us but it looked like they were just screwin around so no one
really responded, Jeff took off
very fast, Rob and I ran together and talked between my heavy breathing. He told me to run the tangents to run
the shortest route possible, so I tried to follow his advice.
Mile 1 – 5:00. So much for Jeff not going out in 4:45, I’m guessing that’s
about where he was, cause he was at least 15 seconds ahead by mile 1. I was a little scared about this pace,
but felt good and enjoyed running with Rob. He told me we could run a 1:05 at that pace :)
Mile 2 – 5:15
Still very fast but feeling good and enjoying myself still. Rob broke away a little bit here at
1.5, but not to far, I could see both Jeff and Rob the whole time, less than 1
minute ahead at any time.
Mile 3 – 5:47
Course leveled out a bit, with some rollers
Mile 4 – 5:47
Mile 5 – 5:44, heat started to get to me, I considered
taking off my shirt, plus there was a hill in here somewhere that really took a
lot out of me.
Mile 6 – 5:52, still hot, I’m a little miserable at this point, but seeing Jeff and
Rob still ahead kept me pushing.
Mile 7 – 6:04, not sure what that was, I remember lots of rollers
and feeling really hot.
Mile 8 – 5:53, finally some more steady downhill, I really
tried to get my pace back up on the downhills no matter how much the ups slowed
me down. My wife and kids where
waiting at mile 8 and that really helped me get back into it, plus I think a
cool tailwind hit us in here. I
really got re-energized at this point.
Also I saw Rob pass Jeff around here, this was the first time I thought I maybe had a chance of
catching Jeff too , since I had pretty much stayed the same distance behind Rob
since he left me.
Mile 9 – 5:57 pretty rolly at this point, focused on taking
the ups easy and pushing the downhill, some guy came out of nowhere right
behind me that I had no idea was there, which made me speed up. I actually caught Jeff on an uphill
here but mentally didn’t think I
could pass him on the uphill so I waited to the top, got my his side and ran
with him about ¼ mile.
Mile 10 – 6:04
Hit mile 10 in 57:30, I looked over at Jeff and told him I had never
done 10 miles in under 1 hour before.
He told me good job and I pulled ahead feeling pretty good about myself.
Mile 11 – 6:20,
at Mile 11 aid station some clown (literally a guy dressed as a clown)
jumped out in front of me and told me to stop and eat a dingdong and get my picture
taken. considering I was now in 2nd
place and feeling pretty good I thought that was a really stupid idea.
Mile 12 – 6:25, course got very brutal in here, very steep hill that just kicked my
butt, the guy that snuck up on me past me and I expected Jeff to pass me at any
second, but then at the top of the hill just 10 yards ahead of me the guy just
stopped, he didn’t have a number on and I wondered if he was just some guy out
for a morning tempo run. It was
strange, I passed him back up. He ended up taking second place.
Mile 13 – 6:31, more up hill, ahh! who designed
this finish, I was struggling but
knowing Jeff was still hot on my trail I pushed myself with everything I had
left.
Mile 13.1 - :30
5:49 pace. Nice downhill
finish, I sprinted it out as much as I could.
Crossed the finish line, and my wife came up and high fived
me and said “you did it” I
thought, of course I did it, I can run 13.1 miles. Then she said, “You won” I said “ Really, where is Rob?” she said I was the first one
in. Immediately I knew what had
happened, at mile 11.5 there was a
left turn that wasn’t marked well at all and no one directing traffic. I knew then that he had missed the
turn. I felt awful and went and
told Jeff about it.
Got a few pictures, went back to the hotel for a quick
shower and returned for the awards ceremony. Ethically, I’m not sure I know what I should have done, I
know that Rob beat me, but I’ve never won anything in my life that I actually
worked for so I didn’t want to just give it up. Plus, my wife would be mad at me if I didn’t win. So I guess all I can do is say “Rob,
I’m really sorry, I didn’t want to win this way especially when you ran so
well, some day I will give you a chance to redeem yourself”
Anyway, I had a great day, I redeemed myself for TOU and
proved I do at least have a 2:40 marathon in me somewhere.
Great race, great food at the end and an all around good
trip. Worth the time and money to
drive up there. Oh, one more thing. 90 second PR on a much harder course than Provo River 1/2 I believe. Rob Murphy, Rob Rohde, Jeff Shadley
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