Almost there!
At the finish line! Felt sooo good to be done!
Yesterday I was feeling really tired and the thought of this race was a little overwhelming. We've had a busy week! Jared and I went to some evening classes for Education Week at BYU, and we've had a lot of stuff going on with back to school preparations. By Friday night, I was tired.
But this race is so fun. So we packed up our stuff and slept over at Grandma and Grandpa G's house. The kids were in heaven with all the cool video games, their fun Roxy dog, and getting to pick lots of fruits and veggies out of their huge garden. Sometimes when you come from big families like ours, it is really nice to spend some one-on-one time with the parents. They are such amazing people, we always learn so much from them.
I loaded the bus all by myself. A little lonely if you ask me. I really enjoy when I have some friends to ride up with and visit with. But at the top after we got dropped off, I was in great company. I had six friends who were also running this race. Good thing too, because the race started 45 minutes late, so it was fun to have some people to talk to.
In 2008 when I ran this race, I got my best time yet by a few minutes. I'd been training for St. George and had a 17 and 14 miler under my belt already, and so a 13.1 didn't seem too hard.
But this fall I'm not running a marathon. And the the longest run I've done in awhile is an 11 miler a couple weeks ago. So I didn't know how I'd do at the end of the race when you lose that nice shade and huge elevation drop. Anyway, I just decided that I'd go for it and not hold back too much. If I burned out at the end, worst case scenario I wouldn't beat my time from a couple years ago.
The first 9 miles were great. I felt really good, and maintained an 8:00/mile pace. The last four weren't as easy and I was feeling it that last mile. I wanted to go faster, but I was slowing down. I was really happy to see the finish line!
My official chip time was 1:46:35 which is an 8:07 pace. I was really happy with that since I think it beat my last time by about 3 minutes. I felt good all day today and am not sore yet. So I'm already thinking about next year and how good it would feel to have an average pace in the sevens.
I was really happy to see my family as I ran into the finish! It is so fun to have familiar faces in the crowd cheering for me. It makes it a lot more fun to have someone to celebrate a good race with.
Since the race started so late, Jared watched all the elite runners coming in. He was pretty inspired! We are doing the Red Rock Relay in a month, and we've been running together. I am excited for him to experience a race, as a participant. I think he is going to love it.
I got some new running shoes. My second pair of Nike Vomero's. I LOVE these shoes. I tried every kind of shoe it seems, and this one really is the best fit for my feet. I don't get nearly the blisters that I did before.
