Place: 10th Overall, 2nd AG
Time: 1:14:12.59 (5:40/mile)
This was my first ever official Half Marathon! Definitely quite an experience. I had run the course of the Timp Trail Half marathon unofficially with a buddy of mine 4 years ago, but other than that I have no experience with these longer distances. As many of you may know, I recently took the position of Manager for the racing team, and thought that it would be a great opportunity to get back into racing and run with some of these awesome people. I definitely have to give a lot of credit to Brandon Dase. Many of you can attest to his awesome positive attitude and encouragement. I've been training a little with him, and he's helped me see some of my potential and become excited to race these distances that I've never really seen myself doing before.
Last week I ran my longest run, 22 miles, with the Sojourners Running Club, and although it went well, I definitely started having second thoughts about racing this last Saturday. However, that's pretty much been my strategy these last couple months: Don't train very well, and have fun racing! It's a little embarrassing, but in the 6 weeks prior to the race, I only went on 8 runs, totaling about 80 miles....So yeah, obviously I'm not a very intelligent runner in some people's books, but I sure have fun doing it!
About the Race: I prepared for the actual race about as well as I trained for it. I moved out of my parents house in Orem to an apartment in Provo for the summer and as part of that, I've been losing quite a bit of sleep. The two nights prior to the race, I got a total of about 9 hours of sleep, and this after 20+ hours at work during those two days. Needless to say, I felt a bit unprepared for race day. Luckily though, I think it helped me. I race best when I feel loose, and relaxed, and if I prepare or think too much about races, I end up stressing myself over them and don't run as smoothly.
So, I woke up Saturday morning to head to the race. Met up shortly after getting there with Mike and Matt and rode with them up to the start. Had a nice warm up with some of these elites, and all this time I'm just having a blast hanging with these running celebrities. At this point I still hadn't come up with a plan for my race, and was trying to decide what to do. Shortly before the race though, I met up with Brandon who was shooting for a sub 1:13 PR, and thought it'd be awesome if I could keep up with him, so I planned to pace him.
The beginning of the race was great, Brandon and I seemed to be comfortably on-pace for a great time. 2 or 3 other guys were running with us through the first 6 miles or so, but at about the halfway point, most of the guys with us started fading, and Brandon suddenly stepped off to the side to take a short break. Confused, I kind of got thrown out of my mental groove, but luckily another guy from Idaho Falls had been on pace with us and I sat with him through the last half of the race. Our splits were pretty even, although I could feel that I started struggling near the end. I ended up finishing a couple seconds behind the guy from Idaho Falls who happened to be the #1 in our age group. I feel like I could have beat him, I just didn't have enough motivation to do so at the end of the race, feeling content already with securing a sub 1:15. Overall, I felt like it was a good race, and I'm pretty stoked about where the summer will be taking me. See you all out there!
My Splits:
1- 5:22
2- 5:10
3- 5:37
4- 5:30
5- 5:26
6- 5:37
7- 5:48
8- 5:31
9- 5:43
10- 5:41
11- 5:57
12- 5:41
13- 5:48
.1 - 5:34/mile
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