Vigor Big Cottonwood Half Marathon 2016

This morning I tried pulling a Susette Fischer and it worked! Up at 3:10am after 2 hours of sleep and headed over to Cottonwood Heights for the Vigor Big Cottonwood Half Marathon. Met up with Randi and Ryan, we found the buses and also met up with Curtis, Susette, Dave and Mimi.

The school buses were entertaining as a number of them struggled to get up the canyon. The one we were on just about took out a tree and signs in the parking lot before we even got on the road. Another one looked like it stalled out and couldn't move so we assumed they were going to get the people onto another bus. Ours attempted to pass another one as we were going up the hill but it took ages to get by the slower bus. At some points we could have run up faster. The air was cool exiting the bus and we quickly got into the warm building to get comfortable.

We spent most of the time in the lodge waiting for the bathrooms and visiting with friends while waiting for bathrooms, but it was soon time to do the 3/4 mile walk to the start line. It still felt cold! I thought its a shame we have to walk down that section of the canyon as it seems such a waste of elevation drop.
About 2 minutes after 6 A.M. with a brand new pair of running shoes I had never worn, the race started. Ryan wasn't feeling great as he had just got back from Taiwan and was getting a bad cold but he said he'd try to keep up with me,

I laughed as he's usually a lot faster than me. I pressed my start button on my garmin as we crossed the start line and I felt like I had wings, I flew down the road. After a half mile I realized there were only about 8 people ahead of me in the whole race, I was thinking I don't belong here this is totally wrong!



I looked at the pace on my watch and it was showing an average of 5 something, I thought I can't keep this up and knew many people would be passing me later in the race. The first mile was the fastest for the whole race at a 6:20/m pace. A new mile PR for me! In the second mile a few people passed me including Angie Welder, she had a late start to the race but had 1:24:00 in her sights for a finish. The morning was cold but bearable and we knew it would warm up quickly towards the last half. Scott Freimuth strolled by me on his way to a first place finish in his age group and a new PR. I figured Susette would catch up to me pretty quickly as she's faster than me and knew she was planning on her own strategy.

Big Cottonwood has some steep parts to it but some areas flatten out, drastically slowing the pace. I watched each mile as they clicked by and slowed to walk through each aid station for water. Mile 2 was 7:24, well below my goal of 7:37/m so I had banked some time by that point, Michele Snow passed me by on her way to a first place finish in her age group AND a new PR. Mile 3 was 8:18, I lost some time on that one and a number of people passed me including the 1:35 pacer, who I had expected to see at some point. Mile 4 I got back into the grove with a 7:39 pace and then 8:05 on mile 5. The 1:40 pacer Jeremy caught up to me and I told him I was NOT happy to see him! We chatted for a bit, then Susette caught up to us and I took off with her. We visited for a few miles until we raced around the S curve on the wrong side of the road and I thought we were going to get yelled at by a cop coming the other direction but he left us alone. Then all of a sudden, Susette was gone. I wasn't sure what happened to her but kept going hoping she would catch up. It turned out she had to stop at one of the Porta-Potties.
We were passed the half way mark and I knew there wasn't too much downhill left so tried to take advantage of what was left. Mile 7 was another fast mile at 6:39 (my shirt came off after it) then 7:31, 7:15, 7:23 and 7:28. With two miles to go I knew I was on track for a new PR. If I did 8 minute miles in the last two I'd still have a solid PR. I was dying to walk some and still only limited my walking to aid stations. In the last half of the race I would get a cup of water at the aid stations, drink half of it, and dump the other half in my hat then flip my hat on to cool my head. A type of mini-swamp cooler :)

Coming out of the canyon we wound our way down a paved trail, along some roads and passed a few people doing the other race distances. One mile to go and I knew I had it! The final corner and I knew the finish line was almost within sight. As I turned the corner I could see 1:37:XX on the clock and pushed that final few feet and was done. Finally after 18 months I had a half marathon PR. Seconds after crossing the line Jennifer crossed and yelled to me that she had been trying to catch me but just couldn't. I took that as a huge compliment as she is a fast runner.
1:37:36 was the official finish time with an overall 7:27/m pace. 6th out of 13 in my age group, a lot of fast old guys my age showed up this morning! Overall I was 67th out of 525 people.
Like a few people have said, today was an awesome day!