Provo River Half Marathon - 1:09:38, 2nd place. This race race was supposed to be just a glorified tempo run. I had run 91 miles in the 5 days prior with no day less than 17 miles total, and two Big Workouts. However, I ended up with a non-Hobblecreek trusted length half-marathon PR, as well as the course PR, even faster than any time I've run it from 2003-2005 when it was about 40 seconds to 1 minute shorter. I did run the Provo River Half in 2002 in 1:09:45 on a course that somehow lost about 0.5 mile and did not have the uphill section on the old highway, and I was still able to beat that time today. So in short, I've never run a half marathon faster than my time today on any course I would consider being of the accurate length except Hobblecreek, which is an entirely different animal.
At the start I found Dave Holt and asked him if he would trade leads with me every quarter. I figured he was in shape to run about 1:12 on a good day, and 1:13 on a not so good day, but he has been starting out a bit faster in his races and he would not mind doing it today especially if he gets to draft half the time, so hopefully if we bring him alive to the old highway hill, then I would not be alone on that tough section. After that, if he cannot go, then I could just press really hard and maybe catch the 1:11 guy by the finish. But, as it often happens, things do not quite turn out as you expected in a race. Early on, I noticed that I was feeling better than I expected and was going faster, which would have been bad news for the old Dave, but we had a different Dave today. He was doing the pace I wanted to go during his lead shifts of his own free will. To make things more interesting, Mike Dudley happened to be in the race, and caught up to us around 2 miles. I asked him if he wanted to participate in sharing the lead, and he agreed. So we went like that taking turns every quarter for most of the race from that point. We hit the 3.23 mark at Vivian in 16:23, 5:04 average . This is actually my PR for that section by 5 seconds, with the earlier being set in a workout where Steve Ashbaker and I did it trading leads and 3.23 was all we were doing, not a half marathon. From Vivian to the bridge at Nuns (around 5.5) we were a bit slower than 5:20 on the flat section, and then around 5:10-5:15 on the downhill. Then on the uphill on the old highway we ran a bit under 6:00 (going by the GPS), and then around 5:10 pace on the way down. Hit the official 10 mile mark of the race around 52:30, which I believe was accurate. This is very good - I raced the Provo River 10 miler in June in 54:13 which is identical to this 10 miler with the exception that you have and out and back on the old highway (with about a mile uphill into a headwind, and then back down) in the half marathon instead of a nice gradual 0.5% down 2 mile stretch in the 10 miler, and the 10 miler has an additional 15 second stretch across the bridge. So probably this 10 mile split is about 30 seconds slower than the 10 miler race. We were going about 5:20 pace down my standard stretch from Nuns to the mouth of the canyon early on. At about 10.5 Mike cranked up the gears, Dave fell back, I tried to hang in there with Mike. He dropped me shortly before 11. I hit 15:55 for my standard 3 mile tempo. Held 5:20 pace for a bit longer, up to the press building ( 11.7), then we turned, instead of a gentle 0.5% down we now started hitting minor rises and no elevation drop, so slowed down to around 5:30-5:35 going off my GPS. Mike won with 1:09:03, I got 1:09:38, Dave got 1:10:06 - 39 seconds faster than his Bryce Canyon time! Then ran back with Dave to find the Fast Running Mommy. Dave turned around after a couple of miles. I found Sarah at around 9.8 mark, and then ran back with her. She finished in 2:08:21, but she took a couple of long bathroom stops (I told her I'd teach her how to make them fast, but she said no thanks) which she estimates cost her about 6 minutes. With the warm-up, total of 20.25 for the whole run. In the evening ran 0.5 with Julia in 5:15, then the run to the swing with Benjamin and Jenny trading places on the bike, and Jacob and Joseph in the double stroller - Jenny 1.52 in 13:53, then Benjamin 2.02 in 15:48. Afterwards, a mile in 7:08 without the stroller or kids. I am happy to have the need to specify that mile was without the kids. Benjamin could have kept up with me for sure, and Jenny possibly could too with some extra motivation. Life time record for the mileage in a week. Previous high was 111.92 earlier this year. I do not think of 116 as high any more. With my recovery routine this feels like routine training, like I am not running the mileage just to prove a point. Based on the feedback from my body I feel this is the optimum healthy training volume for where I am at. I do not feel tired, in fact without the memory and the record of everything I did this week I would not be able to tell. Legs are not sore at all, and I am not feeling any unusual fatigue, in fact, rather energized compared to normal.
| 