Provo River Half Marathon - 1:13:34.7, 4th place. At the start of the race I was still feeling sick. But not sick enough to pace Ben Crozier. So I decided to start with a moderate effort and try to maintain it if I felt healthy, and jog in otherwise. We did a nice 2.5 mile warm-up, and even found a non-virtual bathroom about a mile away from the start for a bonus. The night before inspired by Clyde's suggestion to use a tire repair kit for Five Fingers we stopped by at Home Depot and bought some gasket rubber along with superglue. Total cost of $5.98 with tax. Sarah used that to patch the holes in the bottoms, and it worked great. I think with this hack Five Fingers can go to 3000+ miles. I think if all runners were like me Vibram would be selling Five Fingers with a hole repair kit. And McDonalds and Microsoft would go out of business. If I succeed in replicating myself in sufficient numbers the news headlines will say "Sasha Ruins US Economy!"
I told Jeff with my health issues he might not want to run with me for any portion of the race, but he said that given no prize of significance he was in no hurry to start running hard at the end of another long week. So the start was very leisurely. I found my HR at around 146 after about a mile, and not straining myself too hard. Rich Borget went with us for about a mile then dropped back. Then Jeff started stepping on the gas a bit, and I realized for the sake of preserving my health I needed to drop back. About 2 miles later Justin Park and Eric Harris caught up to me, and we formed a group for a while. We could still see Jeff, so that gives you an idea of how leisurely he was going. At this point we were on the Provo River Trail, and finally I had a chance to access the pace off the quarter marks. I was pleasantly surprised to find it still in the 5:30 range. HR was around 155. Half-way through the hill around mile 7 Justin pushed it, Eric went after him, but I felt it was a bit out of range for me in my current condition, so I held back. Gauged my pace on the uphill off the marks - it was around 6:05, was happy with that considering the day. Once the uphill ended (about a mile), I had a hard time shifting gears, so I was stuck around 5:40. It went on like this for a while, and then 5:40 began to deteriorate into the 5:50 range. The body began to demand a chance to heal and legs started to cave. HR maxed out at 159 on the uphill, and the stabilized at around 151-152. Once the pace started to slow into the 5:50 range, HR dropped to 149. Surprisingly Justin and Eric were not moving away from me at a particularly fast rate. I though, if I could just run three normal miles (5:20), I'd get them. But that was of course wishful thinking. If I did have anything close to three normal miles in me I would not have let them drop me in the first place. On the positive side of things I felt at peace with my body responses. Possibly the first time in my life racing in this condition. I knew what the body was capable of, what was healthy for it, and did not try to make it run faster than it should have been that day. Even though the sickness meant getting beat by people that normally would not have much of a chance. I think it works both ways when a faster runner who is sick gets beat by a slower runner or maybe is still ahead but close enough to stir the appetite. The faster one gets a lesson in humility. The slower one gets a confidence boost. I remember being really excited to be closing on Craig Lawson at the end of 5 K and getting beat by only 8 seconds one time when he had an ear infection. Another positive aspect was the form. I felt the Five Fingers were finally starting to make a headway in fixing the form. It felt smooth. Not a lot of power due to sickness, but there was efficiency. Which I feel had kept me from going over 1:15 today. Throughout the race due to the lack of accurate mile markers I had only an approximate idea about what time I was headed for, but I did not care that much. I just wanted to get to the finish. I was happy to see that it was a somewhat respectable time. As a bonus, a Five Finger PR. I had never raced a half in Five Fingers, but I did hit 1:15:04 split in the Utah Valley Marathon. So now I have an official Five Finger PR for the half. Jeff did very well. In spite of his jogging in the first 4 miles, and in spite of not having anybody to push him, once he started pushing himself he was hitting solid 5:00 pace down the Provo Canyon, and ended up with 1:07:53. I think with a little bit of work he can hit the Trial Qualifier through the half. That would be cool. Hey, wimps run the full marathon to qualify. Real men run the half. Supermen run the 10,000! Eric ended up second with 1:12:32, and Justin 3rd with 1:12:37. Met a lot of bloggers at the finish. They had some solid performances. Dustin managed a 1:18 in spite of his belly. When I saw him at the turnaround, and got an idea of how fast he was going I said wow, he has some serious Quality X to run so fast with this kind of belly and so little training. Rich ran 1:21, a new PR.
Jeff and I ran a cool down. I went only 2.5, Jeff ran 6. Kids ran with Sarah in the evening as a precaution for me not to get more sick. Benjamin, and Julia ran 1.5, Jenny ran 2, Joseph ran 0.5. Benjamin was also not feeling well, he and I might have picked up the same thing. Then Tim and Lindsey Dunkley came over for a visit with their kids. We had a good chat.
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