I have been looking forward to this race for a long time now. To put it in perspective I must give a little back story. Last year was the first year I had actually run consistently since 2002 (I finally got off of my lazy butt) and progress was slow. I ran the Sandy Midnight Moon 5k in 19:10 last year and then more or less shut down running the end of September (used the busy excuse). On the day after Thanksgiving I was involved in a rabbit hunting accident which resulted with me have having a .22 shell in my back and a punctured lung. Amazingly, the only real thing the bullet affected was my left lung (it missed everything else that could have made it worse or fatal). As a result of my punctured lung I had to cut all physical exercise for about 6-weeks. I did a few training runs in April despite the protest of my lungs and started slowing building miles in May. I did the race for the cure and two local Stake 5k's the month of May (all in the 21-22 min range). I did the Riverton 10k July 3rd in 40:37 and continued to build mile in anticipation of the TOU half.
My goal when I first signed up the for the race was a sub-1:30 but as my training progressed I thought a sub-1:25 was very plausable. I did drive the course and ran the last 4-miles a few weeks ago so I had a good idea what the course was going to be like.
As always I started out the race fast my first mile split was 5:52:39 which I subsiquently readjusted over the next 6-miles - 6:04, 6:08, 6:12, 6:09, 6:14, 6:08 (loved that tail wind coming out of the canyon. Over those 6 miles I was passed by a couple runners and passed a couple myself. Mile 8 was 6:19, mile 9 was 6:24 (feeling the road some on the bottom of my feet), mile 10 was 6:24 as well, and 11 was 6:38 (of course the uphill must start after a 90deg turn). Mile 12 clocked in 7:01 (funny how that hill didn't seem so bad a few weeks ago) and my legs were definately tired and I was feeling my feat more. Mile 13 gave some love back with a 6:31 and the last 0.1 was 49 seconds +/-.
I ended up having blisters on the pad of my feat at the base of each big toe but otherwise came out feel pretty ok. I am looking forward to building my base mileage to the 60-80 mpw range over the next several months and seeing where that takes my times over the next year an onward. TOU half and TOU Marathon (my debut marathon) will be on the scedule next year.
I did enjoy meeting some of the fellow bloggers and look forward to more in the future. | 