Parowan Half Marathon, sandbagging can be fun.

Ok I had no intention of doing this race after finishing Bryce Canyon three weeks ago which was my tune up half for the marathon. But some running friends talked me into it and I decided to treat it like a long run as I needed 13.1 for my long anyways this weekend. This would be the very first race I have paid for that I went in with no intention of trying to pr (I won a 5k back in May that I didn't try and race as well but that one was a won race). I figured since it was an impromptu race with no intention of PRing I would honor my bet with Angel at the same time and wear a skirt, alas this didn't work out but I will include the story and pic anyways. So I went to the DI (Deseret Industries its a Mormon goodwill store in Utah) Friday night and found a bright pink skirt.

I got some really strange looks when I held it up to myself to see if it looked like it fit. I chose it because it was pink and because it had a tie string I figured if it was too big I could tie it. I didn't try it on because man I could see those DI people kicking me out or calling the cops on me haha for trying on a woman's skirt. Well I woke up at 4am to get ready to go glad I wasn't driving as we were car pooling as the drive was about an hour a way. I put on the skirt and it fit but it was so tight there was no way I was going to be able to run in it so I had to ditch it. My wife told me after the race even though it said it was an L that it was a size 11 and evidently I am not a size 11 whatever that means haha (why do women gotta compliment things why isn't a 11 a size large) and that I should have gone with a waist band. She showed me a pink skirt i can wear that she has that I can wear on September 29th for a 5k I am doing. Oh well i was even going to run shirtless today in the skirt as a joke a pink skirt and no shirt oh and it would have been so funny had I been able to do it with how the race unfolded. Imagine getting passed by a guy only wearing a bright pink skirt in a half marathon. So we get in line for the porta potties and I lose Justin but after I am lining up for the race start all of a sudden my Uncle comes over who was running the race and gave me a hug. He didn't even tell me he was driving down (he lives in Loveland Colorado and its like a 6-7 hour drive for them) and running the race because I said there was no way I was doing it on facebook. He tells me he wants to beat his time of 1:59xx is all and I should have told him just stick with me then haha as I am getting pretty good at pacing a 2 hour half. So off we go into what must be the single worst road ever imaginable on the face of the planet for 3 miles. It was this hard packed country mountain dirt road with rocks jutting out of it all over the place. Then couple in the fact that the race has a 2700 foot drop much of it during the early miles on this craptastic mountain road and I am thinking dear lord what did I get myself into.

The whole first three miles I am weaving in an out trying to find a non crappy portion of the road to run on and trying not to faceplant because of all the rocks. It was also extremely humid so I am like sweating bullets as we are up in the mountains running next to a mountain stream that made me think I am running in some kind of swamp. So I kept pulling back my pace and slowing down. My typical half mile splits were low 9's and 9:15's and even one 10:08 for the first several miles. Oh and a side not trying to slow down on huge steep downhills and avoid rocks makes ones balls hurt and also my shins were just killing me from the crappy road. I was so ecstatic at mile 3 when we finally hit some paved roads. Granted it was country paved roads that were only slightly better than the dirt roads as you now no longer had to worry about the jutting rocks. It was about here that I started to speed up a little dropping my half mile splits into the high 8's. I was really enjoying myself and having a good time on this nice mountain run that when I hit mile 5 and I was feeling fantastic I decided to drop the hammer a little. This is where all my long runs seemed to come in to play and the fact that I took the first 5 miles so conservatively. Evidently everyone else must have hammered those fast first 5 miles despite the crappy road conditions. During the next 7 miles it was like fish in a barrel after I passed one runner after another as my times started to dip into the low 8's. I was running with the 9 minute crowd running 8 minute miles. I literately had an image of myself standing over a barrel full of fish with a shotgun in my hand just blowing them out of the water over and over. I must have passed 50-60 people the last 7 miles and got passed by no one. I was like you better not slow down or walk because I am coming for you. It was an absolute blast and I felt so great. Best part of it was it was after the vicious downhills so I didn't even trash my legs as it was just a nice sloping downhill at this point.

I caught my uncle at mile 7, and finished 4 minutes ahead of him even though he must have been quite a bit ahead of me as he left me when I was taking the miles slow. I was in such a jovial mood I was kidding with the crowds, at mile 10 we were passing a line of cars that had been diverted for the race and I challenged some of the cheerers in the car to a race and I beat their car in the traffic haha. I also passed my favorite shirt at this point as on the back of it it said you just got passed my a fat man. I so want one of those shirts i even commented to them as I passed them that I loved the shirt and they were getting passed by a former 400 pound fatty. My finish time was 1:58:00 flat and my third sub 2 half. My uncle came in at 2:02 and Justin came in at 1:42:34 freaking sandbagger I have no idea how he ran this race 2 minutes faster than Bryce. while yes the race is more downhill I found the tough technical aspects of the first 3 miles and even the country road aspect up to 5 or 6 making it a way harder race. I feel great no soreness and I basically took it as a great training run for STG marathon as I need to do that in back to back halves to get my goal of a sub 4 and I think i can do it I was still running great at the end and passing people. I trimmed my first 5 mile pace which was a 9:15 all the way to 8:51 at one point and just slowed and enjoyed the last 2 miles in town. Oh and it was so much fun to pass so many people I might need to line up in the back one of these days haha Clearly half marathons are the races I am best at.