Utah Valley Half Marathon

I've wanted to do this race for a long time, and finally signed up in March...before I knew I'd feel fatigued and have another relapse of the mystery illness. Add in that I promised my friend Alex from NYC that I'd do the race and drive him down there with me, and I was doubly committed. Fortunately, though I've been fatigued, I was still able to finish the race. It's too bad I haven't been feeling good, because this would've been a great full marathon to do. Nice downhill but not too steep, great scenery (canyon, forest, waterfall), well-organized, nice finish area, good medals. 

The one down side of the race was that we had to get up really, really early. It's a 50-55 min drive to Provo, where the buses were loading to the race start, and I had to be there by 4:30am; Alex had to be  at his start by 4:15am at the VERY latest. We decided that arriving by 3:45ish would be good, so we left at 2:55am, which meant getting up at 2:30am. I drank a bit of coffee thinking that'd work OK since I'd have time to use the ports-potty before the race, and that worked out well. It was a bit chilly at the start, up the canyon - maybe 50F? (10C). I found a couple friends, Diane and Marj, who were doing the race, and enjoyed chatting with them for a bit. They are in their 70s and still doing half-marathons and marathons - I love that! 

Pretty soon we threw our gear in the truck for transport to the finish, and the race was on. I tried to start off really easy and kept my HR in the 130s for the first nice downhill mile. I kept it a very easy effort until 7km, and then allowed the effort to get a bit harder until about 15km. Then, my legs pretty much gave up, and though I kept going, I stopped pushing the pace and kept my HR about the same, slowing to the finish. My last 5K was a quite slow 34 min, but I'm OK with that; let's face it - I wasn't at all trained to go more than 15k and I was just happy to know I'd finish. I tripped during mile 11 and almost went down, which scared me a bit. My right shin was very tired and I think I just didn't keep ground clearance well with my right toe. Thankfully, I didn't fall, just was off-balance for a few steps and recovered. It frightened me into being a bit more careful for the rest of the race. 

Recovery has been good so far. I haven't had any weird soreness, just the usual post-race stiffness. I have been tired, but not devastatingly so (yet). I took a 90-min nap this afternoon and that refreshed me quite a bit. Hopefully after a good night's sleep I'll feel pretty good tomorrow. We'll see!

Total time: 2:19:09.6 (official, from website). Yeah, that's slow, but most of the slow was the last 5K, so I'll take it. I'm just glad I could finish today. Average HR was pretty high for that speed at 156, but that just reflects being a bit out-of-shape for the long ones right now, I think. At least I'm not signed up for anything long for a while, so I can recover and maybe start some serious training again. Next race is a 3K on Saturday, then maybe a 3K in August in South Lake Tahoe, and then Portland-to-Coast in August. 

Garmin data here. (12th mile marker was off so that split is wrong).