Utah Valley Marathon

Mike ran the Utah Valley Marathon yesterday. We headed to Provo Friday night and spent the night in a motel. Its always a treat to stay in a Motel because we get to watch Cable. We don't have any TV channels at home and have to watch our shows online(since we aren't usually big TV people anyways and have never wanted to spend the money on cable). Its fun being able to watch shows I don't normally watch, and being able to flip thru channels. So that was a highlight for me.

We got up at 3:30 to head to the finish where Mike got on the bus to take him up to the start line. I got to sleep in the back of the SUV for a few more hours. We have a nice bed made back there so it wasn't bad. I almost felt bad for Mike out pounding the pavement while I slept... but then remembered that he actually LIKES doing it. Also there was some rain and some downpours I woke up to, but Mike seems to find rain the be ideal for running conditions.

Mike has a new strategy that he tried with Ogden and then this race. He goes out slow and gets a negative split. It has greatly improved his time and he seems to be in really good shape when he comes across the finish line. He came across in about 3:08 which was good enough for him to qualify for Boston yet again. The cool thing about this race is they give shirts to those who qualify on their course that say "Boston Qualifier". Mikes goal was to get one of those shirts which he succeeded in getting. He did really well this race and felt pretty good at the end.

This morning we got up to do an 11 miler. At about mile 9 I decided to turn it into a Half Marathon (13.1). It about killed me! I now know what it feels like to "hit the wall". I got to the point where it took all I had to even keep my legs moving when I was walking. It was a relief to finally get home. I headed straight to the couch and laid with my legs elevated. My legs have never hurt so bad! I honestly did not think I was going to survive that run. It took me 3:54:49 which is slow. Its ok though because it is faster then I thought I would do for my first half marathon distance. I still have a few months to work on speed. The cut off time for the Half marathon I am doing in October is 3:30 so I have to shave about a half hour off. I think I can do it. I just need to start focusing on speed now. I have mainly tried to focus on getting the distance in and figured once I got to the distance I wanted... I would work on speed. I do think I want to get up to 15 miles before I start working on speed though. So a couple more weeks and I can change my focus. I am glad I got the distance in... but it about killed me. Hopefully it will get better for me though.