I came in seeing an opening to maybe take the men's masters with Steve Anderson not running, depending on who else showed up. My goal was to run 1:20. This turned out to not be in the cards. I think my late start on marathon training, resulting in playing catch up with four consecutive weeks of 20+ milers, with 22 last week, just took too much out of me. Didn't help I spent all of Friday moving my daughter back to BYU and got little sleep.
I lined up with Carol, we were both looking at that 1:20. There was a guy right in front of us that looked older than me, I didn't recognize him (turns out he is 51 and from California) but I could see he was going to be the guy I had to keep up with. Things started out pretty well, but I was disappointed by the lack of a tailwind the first few miles. I tried to hang onto the 51 year old guy for the first few miles, but after mile three he just pulled away and left me in the dust. Canyon splits were 5:53, 6:03, 6:04, 6:05, 5:56, 6:00, 6:00. Then a 6:05 for mile 8. At this point I was right where I wanted to be. Then the legs just gave out. Carol pulled away so I lost my support. mile 9 was 6:17, mile 10 was 6:21, I caught MaryAnn right about here but she put on a nice surge and pulled away as I faltered. Mile 11, 6:37, then I really lost it on mile 12, 7:09. Mile 13 was 6:16, then 6:14 for 0.1 miles.
Nothing to complain about really, I just didn't have any legs to finish the job. But I don't regret giving it a shot. it just wasn't in the cards. Ended up running six seconds slower than last year. At least I am consistent.
the good news- somebody decided to give 75 dollars to second place in the men's masters (??!!!??). I thought they only went one deep in master's, and couldn't hear at the awards, blogger good samaritan Kelli had to tell me to go up and get my prize or I would have forfeited it not even knowing I won the big cash (well, big for a second tier runner like me, I have never won that much). 75 dollars!! Kelli ROCKS- I owe her dinner or something. I gave her a hug after picking up my cash, not sure she appreciated that, but I do really appreciate people like Kelli helipng out with my hearing disability.
So I finally got to meet Kelli, got to host Steve Piccolo and his great family for the night, talked to blogger Jason a bit, talked to a few other bloggers, and was even entrusted with delivering Paul's worthy bib to Walter. I am pretty sure Walter won some free stuff off that bib number, maybe even the treadmill, but I'll leave that between the two of them...
Took off before the raffle, 75 dollars richer, picked up the wife and three boys, and drove back to Provo to remodel and do construction on the slum apartment room of my daughter so it is marginally liveable. I was at BYU 30 years ago, those apartments were dumps then, and they look even worse now. Slumlording in Provo must be the ultimate way to make easy money. Maybe I will invest my 75 dollars on a down payment on one of those complexes...
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