"If we don't suffer enough we won't remember it."

4 miles avg 7:09

10 miles with Melanie avg 6:54 pace.  Warm up 2 1/2 miles (7:26, 6:57, 6:50) then 10 x 1 min fast & 2 min slower. 5:59 fast pace (7:07 pace recovery), 5:39, (7:01), 5:54, (7:33), 5:39, (7:23), 5:47, (7:20), 5:28, (7:12), 5:52, (7:30), 5:43, (7:16), 5:52, (7:15), 5:50, cool down 3 miles (7:18, 7:03, 6:56).  I felt better doing this workout than last time and the pace on our 2 min recovery was consistantly faster. 

8 miles with Melanie avg 7:23 pace. 

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.