Blacksmith fork canyon freedom run 15K, always a fun race. The highlight was our pre-race blogger barbecue last night, with Nan and Aaron and family coming all the way from Colorado, Paul, Cody, Jon and their families, Joe (predog), Dave, Allie, and Ruth. The next morning Allie, Nan and I drove up the canyon for the race, my neighbor was supposed to give us a ride but apparently forgot, we were lucky to make it there on time. Paul, Dave and Ruth ran as well. Cody, Aaron and Jon were at the finish to cheer us in.
oh the race... I had aspirations to finally beat Keith Anderson in this race but he is too strong and fast for me on this course. He took off like a shot, going out at maybe a 5:40 pace, and I was too scared to follow. I thought maybe he would burn out and I could catch him but he is too tough, gapping me by a minute by the end. I did run a 28 second PR for this course which is fine, considering we had a mild head wind as well. Weather was perfect, nice and cool.
splits were 5:55, 6:02, 6:02, 6:05, 6:03, 6:13, 6:32 (big hill up towards Hyrum in here and in part of next mile), 6:27, 5:59, and 5:42 for 0.3 miles. technically I was second in age group, but Keith also won the men's masters so I got the 45-49 age group.
Only glitches in the race were (1) no traffic control crossing highway 165 in Hyrum where the speed limit is 45 mph for the cross traffic so that was dicey and (2) millisecond chip timing didn't bother to show up at the finish or turn on their timing mat until after the first 6 runners had finished, so those runners didn't get official times, and wouldn't have even had their times recorded if they didn't make note of it themselves and ask to have their times recorded.
After the race we hung out for the awards and raffle, I actually won a backpack, yippee! Also took home a huge batch of extra bananas left over after the race. Nan's youngest daughter had a great time going back and forth to the refreshments table and gorging herself on oranges and bananas.
Had fun hosting Aaron, Nan and their cute kids on this trip. Great family, honored they would come for our race, and we enjoyed getting to know them.
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