I am just getting to my computer, it is after 11:00pm, we have been on the go all day and I am exhausted. I will do a race report later. I did finish in 5:34 and was happy with that. I will check on all your blogs soon.
I am finally a wake and can write a race report. I got to the expo and spent almost 2 hours walking around buying all kinds of fun running gear, I had my eye out for all my Redhot Running Chicks and didn't see any of them. I did see a family friend, Craig Cannon and an old friend Keiko. After the expo we went out for dinner with some of Harolds kids and his boss.
I got up at 3:45a and Harold dropped me off at the park to catch the bus at about 4:15. Again I looked for my RHPC's and saw no one.
The race started at 6:45 and I got in the 5:30 Cliff Pacer group. 5:30 was my goal. I stayed with the group until mile 10,a fun group of about 20, with the leader being Maurine's double, red short hair, identical build and gait. It was pretty freaky, it was like running with my ol' buddy. She was 57 years old and a very seasoned runner from LA. I stayed with them until about mile 10 and then had to use a bush, and of course, after that I never quite caught up, I could see them in the distance for a quite a while. Shortly after that I met up with a cute Polynesian girl Rene, that reminded me of my daughters, that was 35 and we stayed together for an hour or so, found out I knew her father at BYU-Hawaii and he actually was the person who hired me to be a dorm parent on campus. Small world. The time flew by as we talked about people we knew in common. She told me how she was invited to run St. George because while running Ogden in 2007 she was hit by car and taken to the hospital, she was also pregnant with twins, all 3 of them were okay, but it was a pretty scarey situation and it did get some media attention. She was adorable and I hope I can get in touch with her and keep up our friendship. She had a really bubbly sense of humor and wore a head band that said "In my dreams I am a Kenyan"
I am not sure when I started to get ahead of Rene, but I was watching my garmin and trying to catch up with my group, so I did leave her behind. I felt like my pace was pretty consistant thru the whole race. Many years I spend quite a bit of time walking after I am down into the city, but I kept my pace even though I was tired and came in at 5:34. This seems to be about my average speed if you were to look at all my 19 marathons, I was really happy, never got too uncomfortable and did feel strong at the finish. I am attempting the Pony Express 50 miler in less than two weeks, so this was a perfect training run.
I was also looking out for my friend Karen Boothe and I noticed she came in 30 seconds after me, and I never saw her. How funny is that?
After the race I we went home and I showered and then we hung out with the grandkids at the pool and then went to the 10 Year Banquet. I saw Karin Rowley get inducted into the club and visited with her for a few minutes and saw acouple other friends and made some new ones. There are now over 1,200 people in the club. They put on a wonderful dinner.
So, I was super happy with the way things went. I feel pretty darn good this morning too. We got up and went and picked up the newspaper to check out the race results. I look at them differently from my Running Chicks, I look to see how many in my age group come in AFTER me, there were 159 in my age group and 18 came in after me. SWEET VICTORY!!!! haha! I love it!!!!
| 