First of all, thanks to my running friend Dave and his family for letting me stay over at his house in Ogden. The very friendly accommodations helped get the day off to a great start; I cannot express my thanks enough.
As expected, I was freezing at the start line and really could not wait for the race director and team to set the starting matts and get this Half on it's way. By the way, the starting line was at mile 1 of the Ogden Marathon course and with the exception of turning off into Eden, followed the course. Shortly after 8:00 am the race started and I fell behind James (Fiddy) and gang and tried to establish some rhythm. I knew my PR pace for a Half was 5:47 miles. The scenic course consisted of rolling hills to and around Pineview Reservoir and the first half of it through mile 8 was a net downhill. Consequently, I tried my best to bank some time with the following splits: 5:29, 5:25, 5:26, 5:28, 5:20, 5:26, 5:36, and 5:35,
For miles 9-11, I tried not to lose too much time off of my goal place by registering the splits of 5:45, 5:53, and 5:51. Then what a running watch loving guy like myself totally fears happened, after short notice that the battery life in my watch was running low, my Garmin just completely died and blanked out. Luckily, Albert was within reach. Albert was out with the leaders for most of the race, but they had sped ahead. I'm sure he had relaxed a little bit, thus allowing me to catch up with him after mile marker 11. It was on! Side by side we matched each others little surges over the closing miles right up to the finish line. My pre-watch dying worries of keeping the pace under 6:00 were long gone as I was caught up in the fun of just racing. My finish time was 1:13:02.6 and Albert finished at 1:13:02.1. Yes it was this much fun, a half a second!
In summary, Albert totally deserved it (i.e., a great closing kick) and I was happy that we both really pushed each other. Also, my friends and Ragnar teammates, Dave and Melisa both ran PRs; congratulations to them. It was great to talk to some of the FRB legends afterwards. James (Fiddy) used this race as a training run and is building the miles back up; he's way fast and will be making some serious noise at the D-News News. Speaking of, Allie ran a really solid Half finishing with a strong second place finish. And I was able to meet and talk with Steve who totally ran away from me at the Running with the Leopards 5k several weeks ago. Steve also ran in the 1:13s and is prime for a strong run in Boston. Plus, just speaking with Steve, he gave me a lot of confidence that I can eventually achieve my sub-6:00 pace marathon goals (i.e., we are running similar paces for the Half and he has accomplished this objective). Maybe even this year? However, I'll have to have stay healthy and have another great running day like this one. Thanks everyone! | 