A decent race: a 3 minute, 40 second PR; 6th overall; 1st in age group. I gave it all I had. I’m pleased, but certainly not satisfied. I was on 2:21 pace through mile 18, and then I fell apart. In short, I’m not in quite as good as shape as I thought I was. I’ve got some serious work to do, and I think I need a better base. I need to work on staying power.
I had a rough last 8 miles. As soon as I fell apart, my only goal was not to get passed. I succeeded, but barely. I held off Mike Nelson, but only by 9 seconds.
I need some serious work with nutrition during the marathon. I had a really tough time tolerating gu’s and Gatorade today. I had major problems with abdominal side cramps (both sides). I was burping the whole race, which altered my breathing. When I wasn’t cramping, I felt amazingly good. When I was cramping, I had to alter my breathing significantly, which affected my ability to hold my pace. I think this may have caught up with me.
One of these days, I need to run a negative split on this course. 1:11:45 first half, 1:13:20 second half. It sure didn’t feel like I started out too fast. I felt very controlled and relaxed, and I was conversing and joking with those I was running with.
I ran the first 2 miles about 10 seconds behind the leaders (just tried to ease into it). I then caught them during mile 3. I ran with Iain, Jon, and Jacob until mile 17, at which time I had to back off. Being former BYU runners, all four of us wore BYU uniforms, which was fun (I hadn’t worn such a uniform since college). I was 20 seconds behind Fritz and Aaron at the half.
My splits: 5:25, 5:35, 5:10, 5:18, 5:19, 5:11, 5:07, 5:54, 5:47, 5:43, 5:48, 5:33, 5:20, 5:17, 5:07, 5:08, 5:13, 5:11, 5:48, 5:39, 5:31, 6:09, 5:56, 5:58, 6:04, 5:49
Today there were impressive performances by many runners. I was thrilled to see so many friends and competitors do well.
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