Happy Pioneer Day! This is one of my favorite days of the year and one of my most anxious/exciting days because for the last five years my race preparation has started in the early morning hours. Waking up at 1:50 am, I changed into my racing gear, did some light exercises (i.e., stretches, sit-ups, and push-ups), and doubled checked that I had everything I needed (i.e., gels and my cold weather gear for the start line), before heading up to the University of Utah to catch the bus up to the start at the top of Big Mountain. Once at the starting line, I took it easy by taking a nap under the starry sky and the full moon. Forty minutes before the race, I went through some pre-race stretches then dropped off my gear bag before reporting to the starting line. I was surprised to see Jenn Shelton, ultra marathon legend from Born to Run, warming up for the race (by the way, Jenn won the women’s race by few seconds over our blog’s extremely fast Allie Scott; Allie almost caught her at the end).
At 5:30 am the traditional bagpiper began the race and I just decided to take off and lead the way. For the last few weeks, I have been thinking about whether I should play it conservative or just go after it for the first few miles that are straight downhill. Following my friend’s advice to run my own race, I went with the latter strategy by knocking out 4:59, 4:49, and 4:46 miles over the first three miles. Last year the pace was in the 5:20s over these opening miles as I kept up with the lead pack. However, during my training run on this part of the course at the beginning of the month, I realized that I was really not putting out any more effort to run in the 4:50s compared to the 5:20s. My thought process is with this steep of a descent, both of these paces are going to thrash your quads.
At mile four, the elite runners (who only let me run the first mile and a half alone before deciding to join me on our 4:50ish descent) broke away from me as I started to pace myself and prepare for the two-mile climb up Little Mountain. Yes, Little Mountain and I have a history and we really are old friends that do not always get along. For this two-mile ascent, I averaged 7:06 minutes per mile, thus, a 7-second faster pace than last year, but still not my goal of a sub-7:00 pace. One of these years!
The run down Emigration Canyon went according to plan and I arrived at Hogle Zoo with an approximate 5:50 average pace. Having done tons of training runs up Crestview Drive, and down Wasatch Drive to Foothill Boulevard, I was able to keep a good pace and everything together over this part of the course. I continued to do pretty well until the incline up Foothill Drive to Sunnyside Avenue (resulted in a 6:53 mile, which I’m thankful for). Personally, this is the most difficult part of the course. My legs were feeling it and the sun was starting to increase the temperatures. Also, I was a little bit low on the water I was running with, so I used the remaining water stations in an effort to stay hydrated. In short, starting at mile 21, it was a fight against exhaustion to the finish.
As always, it felt absolutely unbelievable to finish in Liberty Park in front of a cheering crowd! What an awesome feeling!!! I crossed the line with a time of 2:40:14 (i.e., a 6:07 minutes-per-mile pace; pretty large range from by fastest to slowest mile of 4:46 to 7:06), which is a personal record.
My post-race recovery entailed relaxing under a shady tree and enjoying the Days of 47 Parade festivities while sipping on water and downing a few popsicles. I love the 24th! All the people that come out to cheer the runners on and the volunteers really make me proud to be a Utahan. Needless to say, I look forward to doing it again next year! | 