Half of a Whole

One of the great things I love about where I live is the mountains. I have such an appreciation for them, and I love that there is a canyon so close to my home that I can run through it on my long run days. It is always my favorite part of my runs. It made me excited to run my next half marathon, because the starting point was in the mountains. Excellent!

I ran my second half marathon in the beginning of June. It was a beautiful run! I made it a point not to get too focused on the road in front of me and actually look up and see the beauty around me. I don’t run these races to win, and so I enjoyed the waterfalls, the very full Provo River, and other canyon sites as I ran the Utah Valley Half Marathon on June 11.

It was a good experience. I felt much more prepared for this half than my first, and I shaved about 15 minutes off my record. I finished in 2 hours 23 minutes (exactly — how weird is that?). I had a 10:55 split and finished 169th out of 287 runners for my age group. I was 1,269 out of 1,949 overall and 746 out of 1,296 women.

I knew that it was going to be a big race (it was sold out), but I didn’t really know what nearly 2,000 runners looked like until we were all up at the starting line. Wow. But I found that I enjoyed the energy and fellowship from the crowd. I ran it alone, but I never felt alone.

The hard part of this race that was new to me was the early hour. Because we were running down the canyon, there was no parking at the starting line. Runners met at a mall and were bussed up the canyon to the starting point. The race began at 6 a.m., and the first bus left at 3:30 a.m., the last at 4:30 a.m. (Oi!) This was my view while waiting for the race to start.

I was very happy with how I paced myself through the race. With the amount of people, I was never alone on the course, but I was pleased with how I felt throughout the race (I didn’t allow myself to get caught up with their pace and ran MY race). I was able to hit my goal of an 11 minute mile. At mile 10 I realized that I only had 3 miles to go, and it didn’t feel that far away. I felt well enough that the last mile I actually picked up my pace, running a 10:20 minute mile.

And yes, I did get passed by four full-marathon runners (they ran the same course but started further up the canyon). I didn’t get passed until mile 12 though, so I feel pretty good about myself.

This is the other medal I got from my run. It is for being part of Run the Slam, where you run four half marathons during the season. I now have completed two; my last two races are in August and September. (I have a 10K on Monday, as well.) Below is it with my other Run the Slam medal. When I am done, they will form a circle.

 

I think I’m going to need a place to hang all of these.

Run, run, run!