Waking up early this morning (i.e., 4:30 am), I packed up my gear, GUs, and water then did some stretches before heading out. It took 25 minutes to drive up to the starting line at the Olympic Legacy Bridge at the University of Utah. This gave my just over 30 minutes to do some more stretches and to change out of and drop off my warm-up clothes before heading to the front of the starting line. Near the front of line, I ran into one of my weekend running buddies from the Salt Lake Running Company group who was participating in the half marathon.
After a stirring rendition of the National Anthem by a member of the Armed Forces, Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon started the 7th annual Salt Lake City Marathon. Unlike last year’s where I had a pace per minute range on my miles splits of 1:13 (i.e., 6:00 – 7:13), my range was greater this time around at 1:57 (i.e., 5:45-7:42). This larger range reflects that I got off to a much faster start than last year’s race (i.e., my first four mile splits 5:53, 5:57, 5:45, and 5:51), but my finish was much slower with miles 23-25 being a painful struggle (i.e., 7:11, 7:10, and 7:42). My theory is that my relatively slow finish was a result of wearing racing flats and the warmer weather. This was the first marathon in which I wore racing flats and by mile 23, my legs were feeling really tired (especially my quads which were thrashed). In addition, the weather warmed up significantly during the second half of the race and I don’t believe that I took in enough liquids during the first half when it was nice and cool; therefore, I was pretty dehydrated during these last few miles and at the finish line.
Overall, it was a good experience. I finished in a time of 2:49:28, which is a minutes-per-mile pace of 6:29. Even though I was unable to PR (1:53 behind my fastest marathon time), this was my second fastest marathon. I ran the first half in 1:21:24, which was a 1:06 faster than goal pace; however, I hit the wall at miles 20 (in which I was just seconds behind my 6:17 goal pace) and just bonked at mile 23. However, I improved my Salt Lake Marathon personal best time by 2:18. Now I know that I have a lot to work to do in regards to strengthening my legs in order to take advantage of the lightness of wearing racing flats during a marathon. Plus, I needed to work on getting more consistent with my internal workouts. Tough races always provide a lot of motivation it improve.
Finally, I completed my non-running workout before and after the race that consisted of 300 sit-ups and 30 push-ups in total. | 