Pacing the Utah Valley Half Marathon

I know, you're thinking "What? The half marathon was more than a week ago and you're just posting about it now? Here's a few options as to why it has taken me so long to post this. You can choose one.

1. My recovery affected my ability to think coherently.
2. I was waiting for my rockin cool race photos to get posted.
3. I had moved on and was prepping for Ragnar.
4. My lawyers advised me that if I wanted to win the nomination I had to wait.
5. I was swamped with television and radio appearances promoting my awesomeness.

Feel free to mix and match any of the above or come up with your own. I'm totally good with that.

The race went well. I paced the 1:50 group which meant I needed to maintain an 8:23 pace the whole course of the race. This pace is much closer to my actual race pace so I was anticipating this more than the Thanksgiving Point race.

The race started at 6:00 am which meant that I was getting up at 2:30 am in order to eat some breakfast, get showered and out the door. The last bus left the parking area at 4:30 and I wanted to be there in plenty of time to use the porta potties and be ready. This plan worked smoothly.

I had about 10 people that came up and said they'd be trying to keep up with me. I let everyone know that we'd be running at a slightly faster pace than what was listed to compensate for the couple of hills that we'd encounter on the way.

During the course of the race, I had a small group that stuck with me the whole distance. The course was really nice and had I been running this all out, I would easily be posting about a new PR. Since this is my fastest pacing time, maybe I should say it is a pacing pr?

Me in the bright shirt.

After the race, I grabbed a couple food items and caught the bus to head back to Fleet Feet in American Fork for my half marathon coaching group. It was their first 5 mile run. Around mile 3 of the 5 mile run, I tweaked my foot and ended up hobbling the last few miles.

Finally, here is the awesome race photo.