TOP OF UTAH HALF MARATHON YES! I am so excited with my race today. All year I feel like I've been on the brink of a breakthrough race, but haven't quite been able to capture it. Then, I had the lull in May and June where I was struggling and not running well, and now to come back two months later even stronger feels great! PRE-RACE I felt strangely and weirdly very calm last night and this morning. Nerves were non-existent. I knew I had put in the work and I knew I was going to reap the reward today. I didn't know that I would win, I knew that would take a monster effort, but I knew that sub-1:06 was there for the taking. I dropped my girls off at my sister's (who was so awesome to watch them overnight for me while Amy is out of town) and Spencer and I met Ben at his place and carpooled up. We all split a hotel at Travelodge and Bryant met up with us later and stayed with us as well. This morning we all got up and drove to the buses. Once we began our warmup, I knew ten steps in that my legs were ready. They had been fatigued most of the week, but I took proper precautions to get some life back in them and those first few steps of the warmup were the freshest my legs have felt in a long, long time. RACE The gun went off and I found myself kind of in the lead (if a half-step counts) for the first tenth or two. It seemed that despite the deep field, no one wanted to lead. So, I was content with a slower first mile or two. I feel I run better when I don't force it and let it come to me. But then like 1-2 minutes in Jake threw in surge as if to say, "C'mon guys let get this thing rolling!" So, Jake had about 4-5 seconds on Jacob Howell, Bryant, and me at the mile. Howell and Bryant then made their way up to just behind Jake and I was content to stay back a bit and continue to ease into it as much as I could without letting them get too big of a gap on me. By mile two the gap was still in the 5 second range and I wasn't too worried about it since there were still 11 miles to go. Around 2.5 miles in my legs were warmed up and ready to go. So, on the next downhill I got my shoulders forward and looked down at the ground to force myself to keep them forward and within a half mile I caught up to and passed Howell and Bryant. Just after mile three I think I finally got back up to Jake and then took a 2-3 step lead on him. Miles 1-3 4:55, 4:53, 4:53 I thought maybe I could gain a small lead on Jake after passing him, but he wasn't going to let me off that easily. He stayed right on me for the next couple of miles. I was tempted at times to throw in a surge to test him, but thought better of it as we weren't even half way yet. Just after mile 6 we hit some headwind and I turned and said to Jake, "It's blowing the wrong way!" I thought last year it showed up as early as mile 5, but maybe I was wrong last year. Anyway, right after I said that within the next minute the wind shifted and we got some tailwind around mile 6.5. During this stretch Jake pulled up beside me and looked like he may try for the lead. But instead we stayed side by side to mile 7 and the turn onto Hollow Road. The tailwind lasted about 1.5 miles from 6.5 to 8-ish. Miles 4-8 4:50, 4:47, 4:52, 4:50, 4:51 The tailwind subsided and the road seems flat at this point, but it's actually still a very slight downhill. I had gotten another couple seconds on Jake again after the turn at mile 7 and during mile 9 his footsteps got a lot louder behind me. I looked at my pace and saw 5:xx. I thought, "Oh man, I'm slowing and he's gaining. I have to try and keep these as close to 5:00 as possible". I made a mental effort to pick it up, but it didn't really show up much in the splits. We turned off Hollow Rd. and I still only had mere seconds of a lead. I kept thinking, "C'mon Jake, just fall back!" It was a absolute battle out there today! Running on the highway here I tried to just stay in a good rhythm. I feel I'm a very good uphill runner and decided I would try to win the race in miles 11-12. But, then during mile 10 the footsteps got a bit softer and I knew I was gapping him a bit. I turned at 10.5 to the uphill section and unleashed what I had left. I was going to really get after this section and try to put the race to bed before the final mile. I was extremely pleased with my splits in this section! Just after mile 12 my watch beeped and I looked down and it had lost satellite reception strangely. Up to this point my garmin was about 0.1 ahead of the actual markers (which seems typical for halves; a properly measured half usually shows up around 13.15-13.19 on my garmin). So, I don't know my mile 13 split, but it felt fast. I will do some calculations later and come up with my best guess. But running down to the finish seemed to take forever. UPDATE: I think it was about 4:58 for mile 13. Splits 9-12 5:03 5:05 5:06 5:10 With about a quarter to go I glanced back just to make sure I wasn't getting snuck up on and then knew I had it. I came through the finish chute and allowed myself a little more emotion than normal for a win. I was so thrilled with win and even more so with the clock! 
After I waited for Jake to cross the line and congratulated him. I couldn't have run this fast without Jake pushing me to the limit today. I thought he ran a fantastic race and it took an absolute monster effort to beat him today. He couldn't have been a more gracious runner-up and I appreciated that...thanks Jake. Shortly after the finish, the race director apologized about not having the tape ready for me to break through when I came in. I wasn't worried about it, but she went and got it out of their box and asked me to cross the line again and pretend like it was me finishing the first time...haha it was kind of awkward. This race tells me that I am right there on the cusp of OTQ via the half marathon route. I just need to stay hungry for success, keep my weight down, and not get away from the recipe that has gotten me this far. Thanks to everyone who was there today for your congratulations and kind words. It all means a lot to me and I love our Utah running community. So, many class acts out there this morning! Utah is getting some crazy depth in distance running and it's fun to be a part of it.
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