AM... [R] Ogden 1/2 Marathon (1:14:56) (5:43 pace). Wasatch Running Center had a great day for those keeping tabs. In the
1/2 marathon, WRC runners went 2-3-4 and in the full marathon WRC
runners went 1 and 6. Kyle picked me up and we were out the door to Ogden by 4:00am. Got there quicker than we thought, sat around for 30 minutes then hopped on the bus to the start line--we were out to the start by around 5:45. The bus situation was MUCH smoother than last year, so props to the Ogden organizers for fixing that glitch. Kyle and I warmed up an easy 10 minutes, then I tacked on another 6 minutes to stay a little bit loose. At the start line I met Matt Harmer (a new Wasatch Running Center teammate), Scott Browning and Dustin Ence--its always nice to put faces with names--especially those of you on the blog who share such valuable training information. Matt wanted to go out in the 5:20 range, Kyle and I wanted to be more in the 5:40 range, so we compromised and went somewhere in between. With how my legs have felt the last two weeks and how poor some of my workouts have been, I figured if I was between 1:13:30 and 1:14:30 I could consider it a pretty decent day. Out of the gate, the leader and eventual winner, Peter Vail hammered us. He took off was up 20m in the first 1/4 mile, and we had no intention of following. Instead, Matt, Kyle and myself packed up and worked together. We hit the first mile in 5:33 and followed up with a 5:50 second mile--probably a bit of an overcorrection for the quicker first mile. We settled in for the next couple of miles along Pineview Reservoir, when I realized I was in trouble. My hamstrings started really tightening up around 4 1/2 miles--a problem I've had quite a bit of the last two weeks. When Matt and Kyle started pulling away, I basically had nothing to go with them. I tried to surge a couple of times coming down the canyon to make up ground, but they surged just as hard. I could see the two of them trading off for a bit, and Kyle said after the race that Matt got away from him at about 8 or 9 miles. As for me, with how my legs were feeling I concentrated on trying to stay around or just below 5:40 pace to run at least somewhat respectable. I was able to hang tough until we came out of the canyon and my legs had had about enough of running hard for the day. My last three miles were completely terrible, even though I tried pushing a little bit harder at certain points to see if I could "liven up" a little bit. That didn't happen, and my final time suffered as a result. All in all though, it wasn't that bad considering how frustrating my training has been the last two weeks or so. I'm thinking I need to get in for a massage this week to help me loosen up a little bit and get my legs back under me. I'll probably take Sunday and Monday off before getting back at it. All in all, the race was OK--the time wasn't that far off where I figured I would be based on my workouts, and aside from the last three miles I ran fairly smart and stayed mentally in the race. After the race Kyle and I cooled down another 10 minutes. Splits were as follows... Mile 1 - 5:33 Mile 2 - 5:50 Mile 3 - 5:33 Mile 4 - 5:40 Mile 5 - 5:25 Mile 6 - 5:40 Mile 7 - 5:45 Mile 8 - 5:37 Mile 9 - 5:35 Mile 10 - 5:28 Mile 11 - 5:52 Mile 12 - 6:06 Mile 13.1 - 6:43
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