A.M. Ran the Provo River Half marathon in 1:14:48, 2nd place. Jacob Buhler won with 1:07:15. I was hoping to run 1:11:30 based on my recent workouts and DesNews performance, but there was a problem I did not full appreciate the impact of. 8 days ago I fell and hurt my rib cage. I got up immediately, and shortly after ran a 200 with Benjamin in 29.3. The next day I ran my 3 mile course in 15:59, followed by 15:46 on Tuesday. So I thought this rib cage problem was no big deal. However today during the race it was giving me trouble. I opened with a 5:16 (according to Curt's mark, which I think was accurate), then it was 5:21. At this point I did feel restricted in breathing, but I did not yet need to breathe at super high volume yet, so it was somewhat tolerable. Then in the next two miles I gradually began to get more and more bothered by this problem. It was like Chinese water torture. It does not seem like a big deal, but one drop at a time you get to the point where it becomes unbearable. And I just did not have it in me today to push through it for the entire distance. So I settled on a compromise pace of about 5:45 and coasted/plodded to the finish. I managed to find some markers on the old highway that were placed every 100 meters, and timed what I believe was a mile in 6:27 going up into a headwind, which I thought was not too terrible for the day. On the way down I timed it as well, but I forgot what it was - something along the lines of 5:40. If it was close to 5:00 or under I would have remembered, but a 5:40 downhill/tailwind mile was not worth trying to remember precisely, I suppose, especially while I was dealing with the pain. Interestingly enough, on miles with less downhill I was still running around that pace - I think part of the problem was that the downhill was causing a lot of rib cage jarring, so it added the extra pain to take away from the advantage of the downhill. I timed my 3 mile tempo stretch, which on the race course maps to from about 9 to about 12. I ran that stretch in 17:14 with the splits of 5:40, 5:47, 5:47. My "official" 10 mile split was 57:01, which I remembered from the past years was at an accurate location. At that point I was not happy because I realized that a 17:00 5 K, which is under 5:30 pace would give me only 1:14 low, and it would take some painful work to stay above 1:15 barrier. Nevertheless, I made an effort to stay positive, and just do the best that I could under the circumstances. So I made my way to the finish, saw that I was cutting it close to not cracking 1:15 and sprinted just to be sure to stay on the right side of the 1:15:00 guy. I was rather surprised at the response I got out of my legs for the kick in the last 70 meters or so, but I suppose I should not have been surprised as they in all honesty have been vacationing all along as they could not get enough oxygen to work at top capacity. And oxygen is not needed for a 70 meter sprint. Afterwards I cooled down with Mike Epperson and Tony Vakaafi to make the total of 20 miles. Overall, I think this race was a good learning experience. Had everything been normal, I would have run a faster time, but I would not have learned about the importance of proper lung function in longer races. Of course, I knew that if your lungs were restricted you would not run 100%. But what I did not know is the difference in which it affects a longer race like a half marathon vs just 3 miles. Jenny ran 3, Julia and Joseph 2, Jacob 1. P.M. 0.5 with William. He ran a quarter in 2:19 down the Provo Canyon. Benjamin ran 7.5.
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