13.1 1:23:55.7 177/189 Top of Utah half Marathon! PR! Play-by-Play I didn't sleep great, even though I told myself ever and over that this was just a training run. I knew I could run it in 1:27:37 (that's what I did 3 weeks ago in non-race conditions) and figured the better weather and the aid stations could only help. the weather was pretty good - a few degrees cooler would have been ideal, but it was good enough that I won't complain. I got out of bed around 4:55, drank 2 glasses of water, ate an egg and some oatmeal (2 scoops). I drank another half glass of water and took morning vitamins. Then I waited for my dad and we left. We found Travis near the end of the bus line (he drove with his sister-in-law and here friend that spent the night at his place.) We chatted on the way up. There were huge lines at the POPS, but I didn't really need anything more than a tree. I made a stop at the clothing bus and jogged a bit to the start line. The race started late (about 10 minutes) but we weren't at all surprised - there were 2397 runners - almost 900 more than last year. 1.0 6:17.4 165 - started about 8 feet back (3-4 seconds) but got boxed in - people 8 feet behind me had flown by by the time I could get around 3-5 people running in the wrong spot...Seems like 5-10 seconds, but everyone starts too fast so I wasn't too disappointed. My dad says after he crossed the start line he was still walking and it took him 'til mile 6 to make up the time. 2.0 6:12.1 178 - by here, most people had fallen into their places/paces. A co-worker who started right next to me (Mark Wallace) - who also got boxed in passed me here. There were 4 men running 10 yards ahead of me. I thought I would have been better off running with them, but decided not to push to catch up with them - my Heart Rate was right where I wanted it to be. 3.0 6:21.9 178 - the group of 4 had spread out, I ended up behind the last - Cameron Madsen (son of a different co-worker). At the aid station, I dumped a cup of water over my head and drank some crappy, strong, red Gatorade. At each aid station (6,9,11) I did the same thing, except the Gatorade was better at the other stations. 4.0 6:26.9 177 - I stayed close to Cameron (who finished his 1st Half ever in 1:26:07 - gun time) 5.0 6:16.0 177 - Nephi Sanchez came cruising by. I chatted with him a bit, then he took off. He has a torn meniscus that starts bothering him around 8-9 miles. He made it through the Ragnar relay without any troubles and hoped to do the same today. Then he took off. By now, I was close enough to Cameron to engage in some conversation. I didn't know him until we talked, he just looked like my co-worker Dave. Cameron just got home from his mission in the first week or two of July. He had made his companions run 4 miles with him, so he was in decent shape when he got home. He was hoping to finish around 1:30, but was feeling really good, so he started out fast. He ran tangents fairly well, but like most people he seemed a bit leery of getting too close to the edge. He seemed to have pretty decent form, but did have a fairly loud foot slap on the downhill sections. 6.0 6:17.1 178 - had some wind from varying directions as well as some up and downhill sections. I took the lead from Cameron, thinking that I had tailed him long enough and it would only be fair if he could draft a little in the windy section. By the time we hit the aid station though, their was a sizable gap. 7.0 6:08.2 178 - nice, gentle downhill with a good tailwind - I don't think that the people finishing around 2 hours had this advantage :( 8.0 6:25.1 178 - in the straightaways, 2 of the remaining 3 from the group of 4 men come into view, as well as another guy. I just focused on the tangents and keeping my HR in check. One goal that I had (that I knew I wouldn't meet but wanted to try any was) was to finish the last 5k faster than my 5k race time - difficult, since miles 11 and 12 are uphill - so I tried not to push too hard to catch anyone. Eventually passed 2 and then I caught up with Mark Wallace. I asked how he was doing - he said 'getting tired'. As we talked, my HR spiked to 186 (strange - I've never noticed that while chatting) so I didn't talk much, but I don't think that he wanted to either. As I pulled away, he said, "Go for it!" 9.0 6:29.4 177 - fairly uneventful, but clearly I'm either running out of gas, or the terrain is changing to flat - or maybe both. 10.0 6:30.2 177 - out on the main highway 11.0 6:38.0 178 - as we turned my Maverick, I could finally tell who I was catching up to - Nephi. Before I could catch him, a younger (probably in his twenties, not thirties) guy passed by running great. It must have been Colton Bramwell - I talked with him after, but must have missed his name. It was his first race in a while and he wanted to know what some other good races were, so I told him about the fastrunningblog. I passed Nephi at the aid station. 12.0 7:04.8 177 - right before the mile marker, I passed 3 guys. They were all running side by side, talking. As I passed them, I said, "I'll pass you now so that all of you can pass someone in the last mile!" None of them did. Though either one of them tapered off pretty bad, or wasn't registered because there weren't 3 together at the end (Nephi wasn't one of them.) 13.0 6:20.0 178 - Colton ended up passing someone else, so the next person in front of me was Stephen Robinson - who finished 56 seconds ahead, so I didn't have the pleasure of passing anyone in the last mile. 13.1 0:29.9 184 (4:59 pace) - I had quite the cheering section: brothers BJ (who was in town from Maryland for a couple days), Darrin (who brought his girl friend Kaitlyn), sister Jen, Mom, and of course my wife Jeri Dawn and 4 daughters! So of course I picked it up at the end - though not as much as my brother Travis - who ran the final 0.1 miles in 28 seconds. He really is faster than I am, but my training is much better. His final gun time was 1:27:36 - 6 seconds slower than last year, but he said his watch put him 3 seconds faster than last year. I got some nourishment, put on a shirt, took off my bib (since everyone hates the show-offs who finish then run back), and went looking for my dad. I found him around 11.75. He was tired, walked a bit (but his walk is quite fast - it felt awkward to me, I couldn't decide whether or not to jog just to keep up with him. Then he'd start running and pass everyone who passed him while he was walking. He really wanted to beat last years time of 2:00:15. He wanted to know who was here for support - he spent the night at my place, but everyone else drove up from Plain City this morning. When he heard the list, he knew he had to finish strong. He asked me how far to the finish. I said, "Can you see the black and white arch?" "No, I only see a lot of people." "You can't see the arch above them?" "No." "Well, it's probably 0.3-0.4 miles, how much time do you have?" "3 minutes." "You can make it, but your going to have to push it." We started running. As we got closer to the finish and I prepared to leave him, I told him to push hard. Later he said that when he looked over and realized I was gone, he almost stopped to walk, but heard someone cheering. My dad (registered as Crystal McKellar, who injured her knee...) ran 9 seconds faster than last year! So everyone PR'd by their own watches, but according to gun time, they didn't. (I ran another 2.5 miles in this segment.) As I was running/walking with my dad, Kelli passed by going the opposite direction - I wouldn't have known it was her except for the comment she made on her blog regarding plaid skirt. Eventually she passed going the right way running someone in. I asked if she beat here 1:35 - she did, by a long shot, but you'll have to read her report to find out the results. I also met/talked to Scott Ensign - who did a phenomenal job! Obviously, there were other bloggers there, but I don't really know who, besides Paul Peterson - who also was amazing, though the only place I saw him was the start line - he's way too fast to see anywhere else. After the drawing, I ran home to finish my long run for the week. I followed the TOU Marathon course to 24.125 miles, then cut across to the finish and continued home on canyon road, for another 4.8 miles. It was quite warm. My average HR was around 160 and it took 40 minutes (8:20 pace).
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