The Circle is Now Complete

I’ve been enjoying my summer of running. In April, I completed my first half-marathon. I ran my second in June.

In August, I completed the Hobble Creek Half.

I was pretty happy with my performance, although I did have to walk some of this race. I had a few injuries in July and so wasn’t as ready to run it as I wanted to be. Plus I started out too fast (hazard of running down a canyon), and so was a little wiped at the end of the race. But I finished in 2:27:45 (a little shy of 5 minutes away from my best time). I was 156 out of 184 in my age group, and 946 out of 1074 overall. I ran an 11:26 split.

I don’t feel bad about my placing, since this race seems to draw a lot of professional runners. I think you had to go down 150 places or so before you got out of runners that had greater than 7 minute miles. It was an interesting race, and very beautiful to run down the canyon.

I also ran the Spanish Fork Half at the beginning of September. I did much better on that race. I was surprised at how relatively flat the course was. For some reason, I expected more hills, but it was a fun, if smaller (in the number of competitors), half marathon.

I came very close to beating my best time (2:23:00) with a time of 2:24:53. I wonder if I’d known how close I was if I could have kicked it in a notch? Ah well. I finished 26 out of 32 in my age group and 177 out of 221 overall. I ran an 11:04 split.

One thing that kind of surprised me about this race was how often I was “alone” while on the trail. There were people 100 yards or 200 yards in front or behind me, but I often wasn’t running with people that close to me. Upon reflection, it makes sense because there were only 221 half runners. But it was a unique race because I didn’t have that experience in any of my other races. My favorite part of this race was when we ran along the Spanish Fork river trail. I wish we could have run more of it, but as I understand, it is still under construction. It reminded me of my runs up the canyon near my home.

With this fourth half marathon, I completed my Run the Slam.

So, you could say, the circle is now complete. I ran 52.8 miles for these races this summer, and I’m an official Slammer. I haven’t decided if I will run any or all of them next year (but I am leaning toward at least the Thanksgiving Point and the Utah Valley because they were my favorites), but I am so happy I set a goal to run them and achieved it. Now the next step? Improve my time so I can run one in less than 2 hours. After that, I think I may tackle my first full marathon, which is a long-term goal.

Yes, I may be crazy. But in the little more than a year since I began running, I have found a peace that comes from the steady rhythm of hearing my feet hit the ground. The challenge of enduring 13.1 miles of continual running. How much better I feel after knocking out a run in the morning. It’s safe to say that I’m a runner. And I love it.

I Like to Run