I run therefore, I am!

Arou

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