Salt Lake City Half

Well I totally thought I was prepared to go sub 70 for this race. The training leading up to the race was looking good and I felt this goal would be in reach. Woke up and saw the rain and still didn't think the goal was out the door yet. Did my usual warm-up and everything for the race but their was a different feeling in the air. It all started when my roommate and I got to the train tracks and saw the Altra Company handing out shirts for FREE that said "Keep Running" in memory of Boston. I thought that was way cool. Then it just kept getting amplified the closer you got to the race. It seemed like everybody was there not to just race but to run and remember what it is really all about, the friends you make along the way that got you to that point. They had definitely tightened up security. The stop before the start line they stopped the train and cops with dogs came on board and sniffed the train out before making the final stop and that his how the day started for me. I stepped on the line and the rain did not let up. I started out in 7th place with a 5:04 mile and then pulled the rein's back to settle in at 5:20's. Was holding that until mile 9 when I went up Holiday blvd into a cold head wind with the rain pelting me right in the face. That is when I lost hope for my sub 70min goal time. I thought I could still salvage a 71 but the course was a 1/4 mile long so that roughly adds 80sec to my time and I ended up with a 72min half and a 6th place overall. After the race it was still coming down and I tried to go on a cool down with Jason Holt but we were both freezing and so we only went for 5 mins. We hurried up back to the clothes pick up area to grab our bags and put some dry clothes on. I was very thankful at that moment for the Altra Company for the extra shirt I had gotten that morning. I had plenty of time on my hands sense my roommate was doing the marathon so I made a couple of rounds and got plenty of snacks to munch on and noticed nobody under the beer tent so I took my snacks went in there to try and stay dry. After a half hour they started kicking people out so that they could start serving the beer, well my buddy still had an hour and half before he was projected to finish so I went to the stretch tent to get stretched, way better then getting a massage. After running out of things to do I went to go cheer on the marathoners that were finishing over 4 hours. It was pretty cool to see them finish. I have yet to ever run that long at one time, my hat goes off to them. It was even cooler to see that at 4:09(marathon time) people that had just run Boston run another marathon 5 days later with someone carrying the american flag. That was pretty cool, they were all wearing Boston apparel. I finally saw my buddy cross 20 minutes later. Even though I didn't hit my goal time it was still a great day and a fun day for racing.


Karl