Great Salt Lake Half Marathon, 1:14:10, 6th place. The race was very competitive - Teren Jameson, Patrick Smyth, Paul Petersen, Joe Wilson, Dennis Simonaitis, and Nate Hornok were the big trouble makers. Teren and Patrick took off from the start at sub-5:00 pace, and Paul followed them. I ran with Joe and Dennis. We had Bob Hintze with us for the first mile and a quarter. Joe asked if we thought there would be any road kill. After identifying Pat, I told him extremely unlikely, near impossible. We went out at a steady, a tiny bit slower than 5:20 pace. The mile markers were the most reliable this year that this race has ever had, and it even started where it was supposed to. This is a big improvement over the last two years. Hit the official 5 mile mark in 27:01, the GPS showed 26:51. I drafted behind Dennis and Joe, that helped a lot. I managed another mile with them. After 6, the pace started to feel a lot harder. It is possible that Dennis picked up the effort trying to hold the pace as we started to get the cross wind. After another quarter mile, I could not hold it, and backed off. I slowed down to 5:40 pace at first, felt pretty good, like I could rest a couple of quarters, then pick it up to 5:30, but then something strange started happening. I felt I was running strong, but the pace kept getting slower and slower. I started seeing 1:27 quarters, then 1:28, then 1:29. Joe and Dennis opened up a 43 second gap in 2 miles. Then I began to realize what was happening. We were getting a gradually increasing cross/head wind. It did not feel too bad, but I guess it was having more effect than I thought it would. I slowed down to a 6:01 mile, then 6:06. Then I noticed that Joe and Dennis were not moving away any more. Odd. Then I noticed that Dennis dropped Joe, but I actually started gaining on them a bit. For a while, I started to hope that if I ran strong I might catch up, but they were not that weak, and too far away. Just like Paul, I now looked forward to going up the hill, an odd feeling in that race. Better uphill than into the wind. Felt really good on the first hill. The second hill was bad, as it was into the wind again - slowed down to a 1:44 quarter. Finished in 1:14:08 (official time) . Joe outleaned Dennis at the end, 1:13:23 for Joe, 1:13:24 for Dennis. Teren was in 1:07:41, Pat was second in 1:08:51, Paul finished third in 1:10:22, and Nate Hornok was 7th with 1:16:59. Not sure what to think of the results. Being able to run low 5:20s for six flat miles and feel in control is good. Only 45 seconds behind Joe and Dennis is good unless both of them underperformed today. 3:46 behind Paul is bad, unless he over-performed. Based on Draper Days he should have been 3:11 ahead. 6:27 behind Teren is bad unless he did something really amazing, worth a 1:02 on a good sea-level course. Paul should have been 2:55 behind Teren based on Deseret News instead of actual 2:41, so he is actually within range. Dennis, on the other hand, should have been only 51 seconds behind Paul (based on DesNews 10 K) instead of 3:02, and only 3:46 behind Teren instead of actual 5:43. 77% humidity + the wind may have become a separating factor. Some people handled it better than others.
Around 1:23 into the race started a cool-down with Bill Cobler and Paul. At first we were going slower than 8:00. Then Paul turned around. Bill suggested the idea of running all the way back to the start. That would give us a marathon + a quarter or so to the car from the start of the race. I was a bit low on blood sugar, and was not thinking straight, and also feeling adventurous, so I said, yes, let's do it. We sped up to around 7:20-7:30 pace and coasted. Quite a bit of cross-wind. With 4 miles to go, Bill said he'd better back off. I was getting excited about a few things - wanted to qualify for Boston in this odd manner with a 9 minute break after the first half (and including it in the time), wanted to break the time of my first marathon (3:05:51), and just wanted to have the run over with. So I continued alone at about the same pace. Hit the marathon mark in 3:04:07 from the gun of the half marathon (BQ by 6 minutes!), which gives me around 2:55 of actual running time, then continued on to the car. Interesting observation - at 7:20 pace, it seemed like I was not dipping into blood sugar. The level of lucidness remained the same as the miles progressed, and I did not feel a typical sense of weakness associated with hitting the wall. But I knew I would if I tried to go much faster. And was getting progressively hungrier for food. Ran with the kids in the evening - 1.5 with Benjamin and Jenny in 13:22, then another 0.5 with Benjamin and pushing Jenny in the stroller in 3:47, this gave Benjamin 17:09 for 2 miles, and then 0.5 with Julia in 5:14. | 