Provo River Half-Marathon 1:14:00, first place. This was Curt Catmull's race, which means a lot of expected and unexpected adventure. I was running the timing system as usual. Stayed up until midnight setting it up at the finish. With the latest problems I've been experiencing in tempo runs, and with the lack of sleep on top of that, I knew better than to expect a fast time. However, winning the race was a reasonable goal. Curt by some miracle managed to bus 1500+ people up to the start of the race in the South Fork of the Provo Canyon, and start the race on time. Unfortunately, this was too much on time. I barely got out of the bushes, and started making my way through the crowd to the starting line when he sounded the horn. He does not sleep at all for two days before his races, so being a little jumpy is natural for him I suppose. I started my watch with about 1 second delay, and began to make progress through the congestion of runners without much success. Then I thought of something - use the siren. As I howled like an ambulance to the best of my ability, people started stepping aside to let me pass. It took me only 30 seconds or so before the traffic was thin enough to not need the siren any more. By about half-mile I was finally in the lead. Mile splits - 5:33 (steep down, crowd interference) - 11:02 (5:29) - 16:11 (5:09, steep down) - 27:26 (5 miles) - 33:08 (5:42, part uphill) - 39:17 (6:09, mostly uphill) - 44:44 (5:27) - 50:18 (5:34) - 55:52 ( 5:34) - 1:07:08 (12 miles). Then it took me 6:51 to get to the end, which is a bit too long. The course has been changed. I think in the past it was about 45 seconds short, and now it has become about 30 seconds long. I remember always getting some incredibly fast split on the last 1.1 in the past. The entire race I was feeling just like I did in my tempo runs. Not really feeling tired, but something is blocking me. Tried to deal with it using an artificially high turnover. There was nothing I could do about power, which gives you stride length - that was involuntarily capped. However, I did have some control over the stride frequency and moved my feet as quickly as I could possibly put up with. This drove me nuts, but at least I could go fast enough to be in the lead. After the turnaround (about 6.8) on the old highway I saw Ron Greenwood was about 45 seconds behind, and began to be concerned. He has a lot of potential. If he had been training, he could easily close it. So I ran scared from that point on to keep him off. I was never really sure I had it until I got to the credit union drive-through, and saw I had about a minute lead. The course change was rather interesting. We ran through a drive-through of the Utah Community Credit Union. Maybe next time UCCU should offer a cash prize to the runner that reaches the drive-through first, and hand it to him right there. As I approached the finish, I heard the very familiar "go Daddy!". Wow, this is quite a surprise. This was quite an effort for Sarah to get our five children ages 7 through 3 weeks ready that early in the morning all by herself, and get them to the race. She also brought a video camera to tape me. I appreciate her efforts very much. My watch said 1:13:59. However, I added a second to that for the official time since I started a bit late. Ron was second with 1:14:56, and then Chad Derum with 1:15:29 - new PR. The race was over, however, I was done only with the first half of the full marathon for the day. I still had to time the rest of the runners, and scan 1500+ bar codes. Recruited a couple of volunteers to help me (one of them, Ken Cushing, had just run the race in 1:24), and we went to work. Finally done. Went home, got the results published on raceutah.com, ran with the kids in the afternoon. Went on a date with Sarah, then did bench press at night, usual deal, 100 pounds, narrow grip, 3 sets of 3. I am still amazed at how Curt manages to bring that many people together on such a shoe string budget. The whole race has been for a number of years held together mostly by Curt's enthusiasm. | 