Bryce Canyon 1/2 Marathon today. Last year I ran 1:22:16 and I thought I should be able to go about 30 seconds faster this year, but ended up only 8 seconds faster with a 1:22:08 (avg 6:16 pace). Melanie and I warmed up together and saw Amber G at the start. There was a woman standing near us that looked fast. I was having a hard time reading what her shirt said when she looked my way and I said, "You look fast." She said, "Yes." Then I asked her where she was from and she said, "France," in a very heavy accent. She was definitely fast.
It started to sprinkle on us just as the race started and miles 2 and 3 were into the wind and some pretty hard rain. The clouds were nice and it didn't rain much again until after the race was over but I was soaked the whole time. I felt good most of the race. Miles 3-6 are all a relatively steep downhill. At about mile 5 I said to Melanie, "I feel like I'm sprinting." I was breathing just fine, but the rest of me felt like I was sprinting. Melanie and I ran together until into mile 6 when she started having stomach issues. My stomach didn't feel quite as good on mile 10 but it was nothing compared to what I was afraid of. My kids were throwing up on Wednesday. I had diarrhea on Thursday and hardly ate anything, so I was happy to be feeling in the normal range on Saturday. My legs started really feeling tired about mile 11. I felt like I struggled on mile 13 and that it should have been faster and wasn't.
Overall I was happy with the race. My splits were as follows: 6:23, 6:34, 5:49, 5:54, 6:07, 6:00, 6:14, 6:18, 6:29, 6:23, 6:30, 6:37, 6:30, last bit 24 sec. My watch measured a little short.
About 30 minutes after I got done it started raining again. I felt a little bad for all the people finishing in over 1:50 because they really got poured on at the end. We were staying at the KOA in Cannonville near the finish. We were in a cabin, but my sister-in-law was in a tent with some of her girls. We waited for a while and the rain just wouldn't stop. It rained for over 2 hours straight. We finally took down her tent in the rain and headed for home without doing our usual hike to the waterfall. | 