I quite enjoyed myself today and taking a break from racing and helping pace Kim to a super effort and reaching her goals of PR and BQ. Nice job! On the bus ride up and before the race I had the song Highway to Hell stuck in my head. Wasn't sure if that was a bad omen or not. Guess not. I was happy to see cooler temps at the start than last year AND a nice stiff wind that looked to be mostly a tailwind. Turned out that the dandy tailwind stayed with us for most of the first half of the race it was great. I knew Kim had done the training necessary to meet her goals but you never know what race day will bring and we hadn't done much running in the heat so I was worried about the last 6-8 miles. Turns out my worries were unfounded as Kim hung tough and although things did get harder for her the last 6 miles or so in the heat, she still kept plugging away and usually did better on the mile split goals that I was pushing her to run near the end to guarantee the BQ. She did especially well on the uphill miles blowing away her goal times, even by nearly a minute up Veyo. I thought this would maybe come back to haunt us later but ended up being fine. I think she also crushed Winchester hill goal pace at mile 19 by 30 seconds or so. She had dedicated this mile to a friend who just lost her sister this past week and that seemed to really inspire Kim up the hill. I got worried around mile 25 when Kim got hit with a bout of weirdness that made her ears/hearing wig out and starting to act a bit tipsy. Luckily it passed quickly and she didn't pass out on me. Got a final boost with around .5 to go when Kim saw a close friend cheering her on. She had no idea her friend was going to be in St George. Finished in style down to 8 min pace or quicker the last .2 then got another surprise when Lavell Edwards handed us our medals. Sweet! It was a nice way to end a great run. Congrats to many friends and bloggers who had great races with many PRs. Seemed like everyone did great. Now need to see if there is still any chance of us getting into Boston 2013!
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