Deseret News 10K
6:08 am, 68-72°F, 28% humidity, wind 3 E.
I'm finally posting my race report. I'm not very good at writing interesting race reports, but I'll give you the facts anyway.
I got up at 4:00, got dressed, ate a bowl of Special K, and then drove down Parley's Canyon in the dark and made my way to Research Park on the U of U campus. I got their at about 5:20 and I was early enough that I didn't have to wait in line for a port-a-potty. However, it was very dark in the port-a-potty.
I waited around for a little while until RAD and bye-wing got there and then waited in the port-a-potty line with them even though I had already made my visit there. But I did have a nice visit with those two tall sisters (I'm a shorty).
We all split up at the start and I watched RAD sprint off like it was no one's business. Shortly after the start, a guy just to my right fell down and I had to kind of jump over him to keep from falling myself. I thought about stopping to help him, but I made a snap selfish decision and kept going.
I saw a few sets of sprinklers on people's lawns as I ran through the city, but I didn't run on anyone's lawn (which I do when I'm at home). However, one lady was spraying a house into the street for runners to run through and I caught the edge of that. I didn't see it soon enough to get myself better positioned for it.
There were two aid stations, but I didn't stop at either of them because I figured that I ran 6 or more miles at home without water or anything all the time.
I saw one girl running in a pioneer dress.
The last couple of miles were on the parade route and while it was hours before the start of the parade, there were several people lining the parade route who had apparently camped there over night. There were some tents and a few air mattresses, at least one of which had kids sleeping on it.
I was good and ready to be done by the time I got to the finish line. RAD had finished before me, of course, and she came out and ran the last bit with me. I tried to pick up the pace just a little bit at the very end, but I didn't have much left.
My time was well off my PR despite the aided course. That just shows how sadly out of shape I am compared to where I was a year or so ago. Still, I was glad to finish in under 55 minutes.
After I finished, I got some food, and then RAD and I found bye-wing and ran her in, which was not so easy for me, and then a little while later, the three of us ran in bye-wings daughter, who was finishing hte 5K. At that point I figured I had finished that race enough times.
RAD helped me find Kelli and I sat on the curb and talked to her for a while. We saw the first two marathon finishers come in, and the first guy looked really strong. The second guy looked like he was about to die. I waited for several minutes and didn't see the third guy and then I went and caught the bus back to where I had parked. Because I had hung around for quite a while after I finished the race, most of the people on the bus with me had finished after me and then hadn't stuck around as long. I overheard one man saying that he wished he could be like the young guys and run it in under an hour, and so I felt good that I was at least as fast as these young guys he was with.
After the race, I took my kids to the Olympic Park and they went down the alpine slide. We saw some high school kids practicing ski jumping (yes, they can do it without snow). We had seen more ski jumping from older people and olympians there on Saturday. Then we walked around historic Main Street in Park City. I spent the evening at my mom's house in Murray, where we had dinner and did some fireworks. The fireworks were much more elaborate than what we used to do when I was a kid since Utah as lifted some of their restrictions on fireworks. After that we drove back to Park City in the rain. We drove home to Denver the next day.
My sister (whose house we stayed at) has a daughter who lives in California who is 5 years younger than me and who runs. My sister called her and asked if she wanted to come run this race with me next year and she said yes, so I may be going back to do that race again next year. Maybe if I get my act together and loose some weight I can run it faster next year than I did last year. Also, after seeing all of RAD's and bye-wing's kids at the race, I told my 14-year-old son that if I run it next year he has to too. He agreed.
AP: 8:30. Splits: 8:51, 8:17, 8:33, 8:30, 8:25, 8:30, 0.2 @ 8:27. | 