Race Report

I completed my fifth half marathon yesterday, the Thanksgiving Point Half Marathon. What a great race! I met a couple of my Daily Mile friends in person for the first time and that was wonderful. We spend so much time supporting each other on the site, it's so nice to meet these people in the real world. Anyway, the race course was gorgeous! We ran all over the Thanksgiving Point grounds. The gardens were in bloom, the waterfalls and wild life added to the beauty. The course was a bit of a beast though. Lots of rolling hills and even some very steep climbs. Considering how tough it was, I did really well. I finished with a time of 2:47:19, which is my second best finish time. I paced myself really well and felt great the whole race. I was particularly pleased when mile 10 rolled around and I started picking people off left and right. By mile 12, I was flying by so many people. My sprint to the end was a remarkable 5:13/min mile pace. Sure, it wasn't for very long, but it made for a spectacular finish. I will definitely be running this race again. Very well organized, plenty of aid stations, and the beautiful course made for a phenomenal race. Another bonus, the Thanksgiving Point folks threw in some passes to all their attractions so we were able to enjoy the museum and other events after the race for free. Now to get ready for next week's race in Vernal!

Happy running!

I spend a lot of time running...

So I've started ramping up the mileage in preparation for the marathon on June 9th. Last week I logged my first 18 mile run. The run itself took over 4 hours, so with driving to the trail head, walking to warm up, walking to cool down, stretching, and driving back home, we're talking a time commitment of almost 6 hours. This is most of a work day. Today's 19 miler was closer to home, so that cut the drive time down, but the total workout time was still around 5 hours. Yikes.

There's a running book I read that said you shouldn't have to do a long run over 3 hours in order to complete a marathon. I think that's complete idiocy. My anticipated finish time for the marathon is at least 5 hours, so if I only teach my body to run for 3 hours, it's going to have a total shut down/freak out after than 3 hour mark. So I'm spending most of my Saturdays out there, hitting the pavement, and going slower than ever. My pace has gotten markedly slower since I've started these longer distances.

This is one of those days where I have to wear my comfiest race shirt and fondle my finisher medals to remind me why I bother spending all this time running around in circles.

Enjoy your weekend everyone!

2nd race of the season!

My tendon issue is all cleared up! It hasn't improved my time much though. I ran the Riverton Half Marathon yesterday and finished in 2:51:50. Which is better than my Moab time, but not by much. But I'm using these half marathons as training runs, not really to get specific finish times. I was able to pass quite a few people towards the end, since I've gotten much better at pacing myself on these distance runs. The course had some really nice stretches on the Jordan River Parkway. For some reason, there were lots of pill bugs all over the river trail and since pill bugs are pretty adorable (as bugs go) I spent 2 miles or so dodging them. It added an element of excitement and danger.

There's not too much else to report right now. I was in a car accident on Friday (not my fault at least) and while it was happening I worried that it was going to injure me and interfere with my training. But I'm fine, my car is in the shop getting all mended while the countdown continues to the Utah Valley Marathon.

Happy running folks :)