I run therefore, I am!

I took the bus up with Danielle and Smooth, Rachel, Becca, Tina and some of their friends. I went right to the elite area and got in the porta jon line and talked to Lisa Madsen and gave her some pointers. Those lines were long this year, they need to get more jons or lower the elite field. I saw Kelly and Scott and a few others and then was summoned by St. George Running Center team to get my butt over to the start. I hate waiting to long at the start but there was a lot of faces I hadnt seen in a while so I did my catching up. It was good to see the usual SG runners like Clyde, Steve, Amber, Marci, Dave etc. sorry if youre in the etc group. I made a game plan to work with Jeff, and Ben to run together for a 2:30 time. I really felt I could do it.  I had some mental issues of stress from the night before like my baby taking my garmin watch out of my running bag and my shorts. I usually put a few shorts in but he took my favorite ones out. The other was car issues, we had to borrow my dads car which started the stress. a 2006 VW Passat. I went to take my water bottles to the packet pickup and got their to late so I tried to figure out how to get them to someone. In the meantime I locked my wallet in the car so I went out to get it and realized the keyfob wasnt working. I paid 55 dollars to a tow truck who happened to be in the parking lot which pissed me off but I was trying to eliminate stress not fester on it. I ran in and got my packet right at 9. No chance for looking at any booths and buying a pair of shorts so I left it at that. Back to the start. We took off with a first mile of 5:48 I think it was and I felt really good. There was 3 or 4 fast runners ahead of the main pack which I ran in. They were talking and having a good time and joking around which was fun. The first little hill we came to around mile 3 I think it was I caught myself slowing a bit and they said where did Walter go? I said im right behind you! Im old and my 40 year old legs dont go up these hills like I used to.  That created a chuckle at my expense. We stayed together until the big hill at Veyo and the pack pulled away from Jeff and I. We knew we were ok with 6:40 ish for a few miles so we took it fairly easy. I kind of pushed it a bit around 9 and Jeff didnt respond so I panicked a bit because the main pack had a half mile lead at that point.  I later talked to Jeff who told me his stomache was churning which is not fun.  I decided to try and work on getting the pack again and I was alone, with a bit of head wind and pushed the pace to mile 16. I started picking off stragglers from the pack there and felt really strong besides a mess up on the clock. I didnt have a watch or anyone to tell me my splits and thought I was at mile 16 when I was at 15. The clock said 1:28:45 which made me excited. When I got to mile 16 it was at 1:33 and change. That depressed me because I knew I had to be pushing close to 5:30 or better on the rest of the downhill. I guess I let it get to me because I was at 1:58 at mile 20  which meant I had to have a 32 minute 10k. Not now on these legs. The heat really ripped me a new one at this point and found myself fading and getting passed by runners which has a severe effect on my psychy in a marathon. I cramped up at mile 23 and used that last downhill to keep going but once it flatted out a bit I had a bystander rub my thigh because I was in pain. I sort of hobbled in the last few miles and called it a day.  I ended up winning the Masters Murdock Cheverolet 100 dollars for the fastest old Please follow Fast Running Blog policy regarding vulgar language in Salt Lake County! Ye haw! Thanks Kelly for calling me and telling me that. I shouldve stayed for the awards. I also got my 400 bucks from top 10 from last year also so I ended up with 500 for my troubles to stimulate the gas station, tow truck, ihop, shopping mall(my daughters) Jiffy lube and a disgusting buffet my family all got sick at called Best Buffet. Its not Best or at least its not better than Chuckorama. lol 

Yey a computer! Didnt think Id see one of these for a while here in Wyoming. Little America has nowhere to run my friends! Very Cowboy friendly. I ran on a paved road for a half mile then went on a dirt road for a mile and a half till it dead ended into a sheep hearders camp and I swear I heard a banjo so I turned back for the hotel and finished on their crappy treadmill. Why do hotel treadmills only go 10 mph? Ill have to raise the incline to compensate I guess. Dont blame me when I bust this machine! It doesnt know what its in for. I have several weeks left up here and the elevation is the only cool think to brag about. 

Met Amy's (co worker) running friends up at Suncrest and we ran down to the Legacy Center in Lehi. I met Erica Roberts who knew me somehow and antoher Amy whos husband manages the Tri center. His name is Keb. I ran with him and Russ, the race director of the BYU-Utah relay. We did a 6:55 average for the 10 miles. I did a 1:08. we did a 5:45 last mile which felt good but my legs were tight from SGM still. Erica gave me and Amy a ride back up to my car and told me she knew me from being friends with Carina. Small world our little running community is! She is a riot though, I was laughing at her comments. She called Suncrest Bitch mountain. I have to clean the gatorade out of her truck i spit up.    So it was a great little after burner SGM run. The elevation was 6100' up at Suncrest. It was like we were in Park City. Right in the clouds. Ill have to see if I can figure out how to put her pic from her FB on here! Its insane up there. Great run though I know my legs wont be healed for SoJo marathon. I will have to see how it goes.

Run with

I met Steve and went up to the start, our bus got lost for 20 minutes. At the start I saw and met up up Amy and Stacy. It was good to finally meet them. I think I talked to Ron but wasn't sure. I started out good, a little slower than I did at St. George. I figured it would help save my legs at the end. I ran a mile with Kurt and hit a 5:50 which he thought was too fast and told me I could go. Mile 2 was a 5:40 and 3 was 5:30. 4-7 were a good climb. I did 2-6:22's. Then a 7:09. Then I got back into a 5:45 pace. I slipped to a 6:08 pace at about mile 16 which was kind of early on. I saw Kelli at the soccer park. I was starting to feel it good. I made it to mile 20 which runs by my neighborhood and my wife and kids gave me a bottle of Cytomax. I stopped and drank half it and felt great to mile 21. Then I got passed by the first place guy. I had a death march from then on. I barely kept under 8 pace. It was too much to soon from SGM two weeks ago. I took 2nd overall and made $200 bucks for my lagoon trip with the family next week! :)

One embarrising part I should mention is I collasped at the finish line from severe leg cramps. I couldnt freaking stand up on my own. I was carried to the med tent and they forced me to drink this salted down gatorade 4 cups of it or it was an IV which I didnt want. I was a bit dehydrated. 

Went up to Daybreak with Misty and met Danielle for a ten mile jog. I had to cut it short from not feeling well. I had a nice week long break from running, as well as family and friends. Ive been working in Wyoming during the week days and coming home on the weekend. I got a call on the way home from Wyoming from the SoJo Police Department saying my car was stolen from where I parked it for the week. Lovely, so I got to file a stolen vehicle report and deal with that all night. They recovered it and the suspect is in custody.  Turned out they used my vehicle in a crime scene. I dont know what they did but they said the guys name is Shawn who stole my car.  He said I told him its alright to take it. haha  I wished he wouldve wrecked it so I could catch a freakin break. lol 

4 miles on the Hotel Treadmill in Kemmerer, Wyoming. I thought I was going to break it. I started out at 8 mph and worked into 12 mph by the end. I was surprised it even went that high. It was really a cheap brand machine that got the job done though. 

Ok so, I was in charge of pacing this crazy race a couple of months ago and so I took the challenge of finding awesome friends and runners to help organize pace times of 1:30 every ten minutes to 3 hours. There were some awesome friends on here that helped. Kelli, Rachel, Rob R., James, Allie, Andy B., Tom and Kim Lee, and yours truely. Ok So the race had some serious trouble with packet pickup. The company that sorts out the data from registration failed horribly as they lost info on a couple thousand names of runners. Ooops! So, as you can imagine, packet pickup turned into a complete joke. Im sure he learned his lesson on using them again. So I got my pacers organized a couple of weeks ago and felt really good and added a few later on but it worked! I asked Rob about ideas of pace bands as I knew this course to be fast for the first 4 to 5 miles. I knew that a flat pace wouldnt work as it would make my pacers go slow at the start and all out in the last miles. Not good for most runners who are wanting to stay with an experienced pacer. Kelli told me she had noticed how Clif Bar pacers do that and it is impossible to stay with them. So Rob got the course tool out and went all out so I officially made him my Course Tool Stud! OMG what a great job he did! Everyone of my pacers were right on! So, back to the story here I wanted to share. I had some guy named Luke Wagner who was a clif bar pacer try to insist that I do a flat pace and I told him it wouldnt work. He mustve got offended by this so he started sending me emails which I still have, if you want to see them I can forward them to you. He told me what an idiot I was and that I would fail and I responded back to him that he wouldnt be pacing my 1:30 group or any at all for that matter so he started emailing my pacers negative (and im  being modest here) messages to everyone telling them Im no longer in charge.  Kelli called me up and told me that a couple of days before the race so I sent him my final email telling him if he showed up to packet pickup or the starting line and tried to interfere I would have him escorted out. I actually had the number to the cop at the top so I could and wished he wouldve showed like he said but didnt. I warned Allie and James who were pacing the 1:30 group about him and luckily he didnt show. He actually told me he wanted to fight me so I obliged him and said Id be there!  He sent another email after the race telling my pacers they failed horribly and wow did he get an earful from some of them! So funny! If you guys know him personally I would really like to know why he is acting this way.  Ive never had to deal with someone like that. really? Competing for a pace group? Bring it! I am competitive. lol 

I want to seriously thank my pacers though as they did top notch! I had tons of compliments from runners which makes me feel good and I have to pass it on to you guys as well! Kelli helped me out a lot at packet pickup and Rob, omg I cant thank enough. He saved the day. Rachel helped in the chaos at packet pickup as well.  Allie and James were so into their pace group that they got engaged over it! Ok so maybe thats not how it happened but it would make a great story right? Tom and Kim came in right on cue and had a lady that was so excited to hit that time that I think she wanted to bake you guys a cake or something! I told her to make sure she left a comment on the website!  Andy I cant forget either! Such a great job.  So all in all thank you guys and Michael the race director already told me we would be his official pacers! Now I can start squeezing him for some rewards to you guys for helping. Thank YOU!  I had fun!  I will do this again!