2:51:21
The day started way to early, probably not as early as Mike though :) I live in Midway so I got a ride to the start line. I was a little disappointed that there wasn't really a place to warm up, no music or anything, it was a pretty mellow atmosphere. Race started right on time which was really nice. I intentionally started a little slower than goal pace, tried to hold back and gradually pick it up. By mile 3 I settled into 6:14s right where I wanted to be. Then came the wind!!! Once I realized how awful the head wind was I decided to ditch the watch and run by feel. The whole canyon was brutal. I very rudely drafted behind a couple people wherever it was possible. When I look back at my garmin I can see that my paces where all over the map from 5:54 as my fastest and 7:15 as my slowest through the canyon. I made the left turn out of the canyon and was very hopeful that there would be a tail wind and I could make up for a little of the lost time. No such luck! From mile 18-26.2 my goal was to maintain the lead, and run hard. Everybody on the course and off was super nice and so supportive. I did a few things really wrong in getting ready for this race. I spent close to 2 weeks at sea level then came home to elevation the day before. Then I spent an hour at runners corner on Friday picking out the shoes I was going to run in the next day (I should have done that sooner). Thank you Tristram for digging out the perfect shoes for me! The things that I think I did right were, getting new shoes, a really good night sleep on Thursday, chocolate chip pancakes for dinner on Friday and I started fueling a little earlier during the race than usual. I am not thrilled about my time as it is quite a few minutes off my goal, but I am really happy that I pushed hard and feel that I ran my best for the day and conditions. I am looking forward to a little break and time to figure out whats next.
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