Each Day Is a Gift

Got up at 7:00.  Breakfast of oatmeal in half n half, with 1/2 banana, few raspberries and blueberries.  6oz water.  Lowell and I left the house at 8:35 as planned.  Got to Dixie Center with 18 min to spare.  Met up with Amanda and Hailey.  Used the restroom then walked to the start.  Saw Karen and Evan Tree so visited with them a bit while waiting to start.  The announcer said starting temp was 25F.  Race started right on time at 9am.  We jumped in after the 2:30 pacer.  Karen, Evan, Lowell, Hailey and Amanda quickly ran off ahead.  I just loved this fun atmosphere of this race with over 700 participants.  Well, mainly I like races where we just walk up to the start instead of riding the bus to the start! :)

My only goal is to finish this thing before the time limit of 3:30.  I broke my tail bone on Oct 17 last year and hadn't run for the next 6 weeks.  I ran a handful of times in December.  In January I did 9 runs, mostly short runs on the Legacy Center tiny indoor track.  The longest run was last Fri on the MTC for 11 miles. which took me about 2.5 hours.  I had not worn a GPS watch for months.  This morning Lowell slapped on my wrist one of his older Garmin watches and showed me the start/stop button.  So I decided to start running at every 5 min interval, walking for 30 sec. in each interval, so run 4.5 min and walk 30 sec.  I also walked through every aid station taking a cup of gatorade and a cup of water.  I ate a Gu at the third aid station which is just before mile 7, so at half way.  I took off my headband at mile 5, shed the jacket after taking the Gu at half way.

The first couple miles were on River Rd with gradual incline.  The next three miles were running up to the Bloomington Hill neighborhood and by the golf course.  Then the course spilled out on Brigham Rd for the first of two significant inclines up to mile 7.  Then we dropped down for a quarter mile and turned into the trail.  I saw a group of family members cheering on couple of ladies ahead at the turns before the trailhead.  Then I recognized Barbara, mother of Kathie Phillips.  I asked if Kathie was running this to which she said no.  Soon I caught up to the two ladies and recognized Kim (Kathie's younger sister) right away.  We exchanged hugs and chatted a bit.  It was SO great to see her.  I tried to hang with her but she's a much stronger runner than me.

Around mile 9.5 my left calves started to cramp so I walked and pulled out the Hyland cramp tablets which I dropped at which time a lady looked to me in my age group passed me.  I looked at my time after mile 10 and figured if I kept a 13min pace I'd make it under 2:45.  I was leapfrogging with a young man who has some kind of vascular disease that affects his left lower leg.  His left calf is bigger than the right calf and has very visible bunches of varicos veins.  I encourged him along with a taller man who was coughing at one time.  Since I was coughing quite a bit from my asthma, I asked if he too has asthma to which he said no and that he just had a cough.  He was very complimenting of my run despite having asthma.  Anyhow, I had the usualy cough, blow nose, spit during the walk interval.  Never did get into wheezing mode so I was not pushing the pace at all.  Now with 5K to go, I just concentrate on not letting my pace got higher than 12:30.  I passed the lady (who might be in my AG that passed me earlier) at mile 11 and never saw her again until after the finish.  When I passed the 12 mile marker, I called Lowell to let him know I had one mile to go.  He had of course already finished and was planning to run back to find me.  He said, "one mile left ?!! liar, liar, pants on fire!" Then I said, yep, see you in 15 min. and we both laughed.

Saw him soon at a bend looking down at his phone.  I yelled out to him and just in time for the walk break and he pranced right along and then sprinted ahead to snap a few pictures of me.  He said he told Larry when I called so he'd be at the shute before the finish.  I waved to Larry and looked ahead at the finisher clock showing 2:39:xx.  So happy to have finished in 2:38, well under the 3:30 time limit.  Lowell ran a 2:13 and won his AG. 

A little side note:  The last time I ran this was in 2018.  I crossed the finish line with TJ in 2:19 and we both took 3rd in our AG.  It's sad to realize how much slower I've gotten over the last few years.   Today we had perfect weather, in the 30s, sunny no wind.  Legs felt good.  We walked over to Cracker Barrel for lunch.  After shower at Lowell's house, we drove home in the afternoon.  Larry commented that I should just do Halfs from now on, so much easier on the body and on him! Haha!!!