On June 11th my Dad and I ran the Utah Valley Marathon. I wanted to do this one for my first marathon because time wise it worked out being right between school and my leaving on a mission. I also chose this one because it is a fast course. Basically the course goes all the way down Provo Canyon and turns onto University Avenue for 6 miles to finish at Center Street in Provo. My Dad and I registered for the race as a cross country team. Which means we were on a team with two other people, and after the race was over they would combine our times and that combined time would be ranked against the other teams and the fastest time would win. Along with my Dad and I was a friend of my Dads, Troy Anderson. As well as a buddy of mine from the UVU Cross Country Team, Stan Bown. This was Stan and I's first marathon, my Dad's sixth or seventh, and Troy's 40th or some such number. My original goal was 2:45 or faster, but as I was training for it, I was feeling really good about the kind of shape I was in and I started to hope for a 2:40 or even a 2:35. My problem was that I only had two weeks to train for the marathon after track season got over, so I wasn't able to get any really good long runs in. So when race day came Stan and I decided to just run together for as long as possible and hopefully we'd end up with a good time. The goal was to stay on 6 minute mile pace (2:37) for as long as possible, and then if we died off we'd still get a solid time. Well the race started and we took off pretty slow, we took our spot slightly off the lead pack and ran the first mile very conservatively. We came through the mile split at 6:30, which was too slow for our race plan. So we picked it up just a little bit, and started running 5:50-6:00 pace. We were both excited about it because even though we had a long way to go, we were hitting 5:50s consistently and it felt really easy. About 7 or 8 miles in Stan fell off pace a bit, but managed to catch up later. I had to take a bathroom stop about 100 meters before the halfway mark. So my half marathon split ended up being 1:20ish (6:06 pace) but it would have been a 1:17 (5:52 pace) without the bathroom stop. So I knew I was on track for a great time and I was still feeling really good. Stan and I would keep trading places along the way and I finally had to stop at the bathroom again at mile 19. Between mile 13 and mile 19 I had been slowing down a bit (dropping from 6:00 pace to 6:30 pace). I still wasn't concerned because I had given myself a good time cushion earlier and could still run a good time.... Until mile 20. At mile 20 all of a sudden I wished I had had a couple more weeks to train and get some longer runs in. I went from running 6:30 pace to 7:30 pace to 8:30 pace. My legs seized up and every step sent a shock wave of pain up my body. The 3 hour mark which I previously hadn't even worried about seemed to be creeping up on me and I was worried I wouldn't be able to get a sub 3. I started to worry that my Dad (who's goal was 3:15) would catch up to me. And I would never hear the end of that. I started to get excited for the aid stations, not for water, bathrooms, or the fact that it meant I was getting closer. I was excited for them because it gave me an excuse to walk. The finish line was visible at least four miles away but it never got any closer visually until I was right on top of it. I finally finished with a 2:55, ten minutes slower than my original goal. I wasn't upset about it, I still considered 2:55 a decent time for my first one. Although I was a little disappointed that I missed a chance to shock everybody with an amazing debut marathon. At any rate, it was lots of fun (until mile 20). My dad ended up running 3:31 (16 minutes slower than his goal as well, and Stan ended up with a 2:48 winning our age division while I took 4th. But luckily we still all qualified for the Boston Marathon even though our times were still a little slower than we had hoped. We were also surprised to find out that our team and taken 3rd place overall! It was a fun race to run, and I can't wait to do another one. Although I plan to prepare a little better for the next one.
Last mile
First blister from running!
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