A.M. Ran with Chad and George - total of 21 miles. Chad and I did the Provo River Half course uneventfully, meaning we raced it while there was no official race organized. Well, Chad raced it all out from the gun. I ran the first 4 miles with him, then raced it after that. My time was 1:15:04, he got 1:17:55 - a new half PR for him. I was expecting around 1:16, but Chad opened quicker than I expected, which helped with the overall time.
We warmed up 1 mile with George, and then started the Uneventful.
Splits by Curt's mile markers along with some other points of signficance - 5:21, 5:31 (10:52), 5:51 (16:41), 5:41 (22:22). At about 4.1 I had to stop to go to the bathroom, while Chad continued. If this was a real race I would have done a VPB without stopping the watch, but since this was Uneventful I just stopped my watch. Afterwards I continued at a true race effort. Next mile was 5:39 (28:01), do not remember mile marker splits after that point, but the pace was around 5:40 until the start of the climb. 36:28 at the letter S (start of the climb on the old highway). At this point I observed that I was 1:28 behind my Provo River Half split, and decided to try to make as much ground as I could. Uphill mile in 6:26 - 42:52 at the end of it - I passed Chad half way through it gaining 21 seconds on my Provo River Half time. At this point I thought that I might be able to actually beat the race time, but I ended up not quite having as much downhill speed. Next mile was 5:33 - 49:39 at the bottom by the letter S, then 50:47 at the start of the three mile tempo course at Nunn's Park. The 3 mile stretch in 17:05 with the splits of 5:37, 5:46, 5:42 - 1:07:52 at the end of it. 1:12:01 at the little bridge that is 1.5 miles away from my house, 1:14:32 at the official 13 mile marker.
Afterwards, Chad and I had a death march cooldown of 7 miles up the Provo Canyon to my car which was parked at the Vivian Park. I learned something. I noticed that 8:00 pace was awfully hard. Doing the math I also realized that we had one mile longer to the car than I hoped for. In desparation I stopped at the water fountain and drank some water. I never do that normally. I did not think it would help much because I believed the problem was fuel, but as it turned out there must have been quite a bit of dehydration. The water made quite a bit of a difference - 8:00 pace still felt harder than what it should, but at least I wanted to go faster. However, 8:00 on less steep grade, and 8:30 on steeper grade was all that Chad could do, so that is what we did.
Kids ran on their own. Benjamin did 5, Jenny 3, Julia 3, Joseph 3, Jacob 2, William 1.
| 