In keeping with a tradition that started in 2007, I headed to the start line of the Farmington Festival Days Half Marathon. I’ve used this race to measure my state of fitness as I am set to run the Deseret News Marathon. I have been doing a lot of my recent running at slow paces on trails and so this was a good opportunity to jump back to the road and shift gears.
Last weekend, I did a 40 mile mountain trail run/walk/hike as part of my training for the upcoming Wasatch 100 race in September. I expected my legs to be fried as only a week had passed. To my surprise, the long and slow distance seemed to have had little effect. The biggest implication was possibly a little slower leg turnover, but that was about it.
As I stood at the starting line, it was very apparent to see that the field of runners was smaller than years past, and was lacking the elites. When the race began, one runner surged ahead and created a gap from the lead pack of 6 runners. A couple of us exchanged positions through the first half of the race, but we mostly just settled in. I was in fifth place and could see the leader losing ground by mile 7. Second and third were keeping steady, but the leader was crashing hard. I held closely to fourth, and we both passed the prior leader just before the nine mile aid station. At this point, the greatest uphill came to tackle. I took it on with a slow shuffle, but found that I could speed walk it faster and more efficiently. In doing so, a runner I had not seen prior, passed me by.
Upon cresting the hill, it was time to pick the pace back up, and see if I could latch on to the runner whom had just overtaken me. I passed the fourth place runner I had run behind the entire race just prior to mile 11, and kept closely behind third place. I kept as close as I could, but felt I was topped out. I hoped to have a final surge in me in the last half mile or so, but all I had was the ability to hold relatively steady. Third place bettered my performance by a mere fourteen seconds, and for that, I am content with my performance for the day. My time was off by exactly two minutes from last year, but I had a feeling this would be the case, as I have been consistently a little slower at each event this year.
After the race, Melissa and I enjoyed ‘breakfast in the park,’ and headed home where her father awaited to get started on framing in an addition to our garage. A majority of the day was spent out in the hot sun tackling this task, but by the evening, all the new walls were in place.
My Garmin splits were:
1. 6:43
2. 6:20
3. 6:21
4. 6:40
5. 6:26
6. 6:50
7. 6:54
8. 7:12
9. 7:04
10. 7:47 That was a slow mile!
11. 6:39
12. 7:00
13. 6:33
.09 5:55 (:31.23)
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