Keeping myself sane!!!

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)

It was a rough day to run a marathon.  A combination of wind and heat added to the challenge of keeping on pace.  I felt undertrained going into the race as well, so I knew early on that I would try for some good miles, and just hold on for whatever the day would bring.

As I headed to catch the bus, my SUVs’ temp gauge showed a reading outside of 85’F.  Not a good sign at 3 a.m.!  In the minutes prior to the race start, a rush of wind came upon us and with it, some sideways rain.  The clouds overhead and coming in didn’t appear ominous, but it was the wind I had concern about.  I did figure however, that we would be shielded from the winds as we dropped from the summit.  This held true to a degree, but I felt the effects off and on throughout the first half as we headed down Emigration Canyon.

By mile 6, as we began the worst climb of the race, I felt some tightening in my left calf muscle.  It was a minor aggravation that progressed as the miles went by, and then became a setback on my right calf as well later on.  I held pace through the half with a time of 1:32 and change.  If I could hold out with some inevitable slowing, I could pull off a finish around 3:10.

Around mile 16, I could feel that my effort was greater than it should have been at that point in the race.  I knew then that my time would suffer and I had to throw that concern out and give the miles ahead the best pace I had in me.  I had a gradual decrease in pace, with a marginally decent mile thrown in here and there.  The blaring sun was taking hold, and I just tossed water over my head at each of the aid stations, while looking forward to having the race over with.

The last 10k felt like a crawl. I never felt the “wall,” but my legs were tight and unresponsive.  I was however, liberated to not be looking at my Garmin anymore to measure my faltering ways.  The goal had become to avoid a total crash as I had with Ogden a couple months ago, as I felt defeated in walking out the last miles.

It took me 10:32 longer to complete the race than last year, and was my slowest in the past five.  I could be more disappointed, but it’s moments like this that make the races of which everything falls into place so much more to be appreciated.  I will definitely be back for more, as I generally enjoy this race! 

I saw my parents at the finish as my mother and her friend had participated in the 10k, and chose to mill around until I came through.  They were happy with their overall experience.  Melissa was home working, even though she wanted to be at the finish.  We will be gone on vacation next week, so she felt guilty than to take the day off.

My Garmin splits were:

1.  6:23

2. 6:18

3. 6:27

4. 6:52

5. 7:03

6.  7:32 Start of 3 slow miles!

7. 7:53

8.  7:53

9. 7:15 Heading down Emigration for a few miles…

10. 7:19

11. 7:00

12. 6:59

13. 7:02

14. 7:09

15. 7:05

16. 7:33 Slowing above Foothill

17. 7:21

18. 7:36

19. 7:26

20. 7:49

21. 8:25 Ouch!

22. 7:21

23. 7:46

24. 8:01 Ouch!

25. 7:57

26. 8:15 Ouch!

7:54 (3:49, read .48 mi.)