Back-to-back 1/2 marathons? What was I thinking? Sometimes my intelligence can be questioned. And today might be one of those days. But that's Ok. I had fun anyway. I contacted the race director multiple times to see if he would let Mike and I into the race. I didn't even decide to do this race until 2 days ago. My legs were too thrashed, but then they somewhat turned the corner on Thursday. The race director told me to take a hike -- "We are sold out," he kept saying. "We need to treat everyone fairly; no exceptions." Whatever. Oh well -- Mike and I decided to bandit the race, and it was a blast. And, I enjoyed drinking the Gatorade during the race and eating the food at the end of the race :) I PR'd, but there's a definite asterisk for this one (boy is it aided). It was sure fun though. I felt very strong and comfortable. Didn't hurt that much (cardiovascular-wise). But my legs sure were telling me I did a 1/2 marathon a week ago. My plan was to go by feel, be conservative, and see what happened. I firmly decided beforehand I was not going to go out in sub-5 pace with the leaders. That will be for another day. Ran the first ~ 9 miles with Mike and Nate (a strong runner and 2:28 marathoner from Idaho). Pace was conversational, and we actually talked a lot -- which is always fun during a race (maybe this means I wasn't going hard enough? -- actually it was plenty for me today). Nate made a strong and calculated move at mile 8.5, and I knew I couldn't quite cover it today. He put a minute on me during the final 4.5 miles. Mike fell back a bit, but he ran an amazing race! Very impressive. Great things in store for him. I finished strong (I felt strong the whole way). I finished feeling like I had a lot left in the tank. Not ideal, if you think about just one individual race, but this was perfect for me today. With my race last week, this was plenty. Zack and Scott ran very well! Their first 10 miles were sub-5 pace! It was fun to watch them pull away. Walter ran the race of the day! Absolutely incredible and inspiring! He just ran a marathon last week. I kept thinking he would come back to me, but he kept extending his lead. He eventually did come back to me, but it took me a long time to catch him. Animal! Overall, a fun day. No racing for me for awhile. My splits: 5:05, 5:14, 5:16, 5:04, 5:04, 5:08, 5:13, 5:11, 5:22, 5:19, 5:37 (hill), 5:22, 5:26, :20 (last .08). My Garmin chimed multiple times in the canyon -- indicating that satellite reception had been lost. So who knows how accurate these splits are. But, my total time of 1:08:49 is accurate. I would have taken 4th overall, and 3rd in my age group. My wife ran the race and PR'd! A great day for her! But no running pictures today, because we both ran.
One last thing. And I apologize for the picture below. Absolutely disgusting, I know. In fact, I hear that Allie almost threw up her cheerios last weekend, while eating breakfast, when she saw the picture of my blisters. Today, I ran in my Asics DS racers (my Nike Lunar Racers I ran in last week gave me horrible, unprecedented blisters, and I've paid for it all week). I lubed up my blisters with vaseline prior to the race. My asics worked well today, but my blisters are MUCH worse, because they had barely started to heal from last week. By far the worst I've ever had. The new, red parts are the worst. I am in a bad way. Ok, enough whining. Sorry again about these pictures. I guess, because I'm a doctor, that pictures like this don't bother me. I'll be sure not to show you these again :)
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