Week of May 20th plus Timp Trail Marathon Report

About time I posted again.

Well, this week was kind of a waste....sort of.  I spent the week in Salt Lake City attending an OSHA 30 hour training course.  Since I'm the safety weasel for my place of employment, I need to be up on all the OSHA stuff.  The 30 hour course is kind of a big deal in the safety world.  Still, it did put a little bit of a crimp in my rinning plans.  No lunchtime runs we to be had and I ate lunch out every day.  I still managed to get some running in, but with the Timp Trail Marathon on Saturday, I was a little worried about how I would do.  So here goes.

Sunday - Did a short run with Karen.  We went late morning and ran Rainbow north.  We came back on the lower trail just for a change of pace.  It was a nice run.  Miles - 6.0

Monday - Felt kind of like crap after the first day of training and too much lunch.  Ran from Kaysville to Fernwood and back, the first few miles of the Wasatch course.  It was a hot day and the run was pretty slow.  Miles - 7.2

Tuesday - Ran a bit farther.  Rainbow north to the canal road.  If I remember right it was a kind of warm day.  Miles - 7.8

Wednesday - Had big plans to run the Wheeler-Sardine loop.  Felt like crap again, so bailed on that.  Instead I went to the south Skyline trailhead and ran up towards Lewis peak a few miles.  Hadn't been up this trail in over a year, so it was a nice to go up there.  Took it slow since I couldn't run faster.  Miles - 6.5

Thursday - Took the day off.  Just wasn't feeling the love.

Friday - Ran from Rainbow north to the canal road again.  This was the first run of the week that felt good.  I cruised it and felt good the entire time.  Not super fast, but good enough.  Miles - 7.8

Saturday - Timp Trail Marathon - Race report.  This is the third year I've run this race and it gets better each year, or at least I get faster each year.  After a sucky week of running, I was looking forward to a decent time, especially since the weather was going to be perfect and the trails would be in awesome shape.  Not only that, but seven HUMR's were going to be there running the thing.  It's always a good time when a bunch of us get together.
The trail this year was in perfect condition, no snow at the higher elevations and no mud going up the trail from circle springs. 
When we started, I decided to hang back for the first little bit along the pipeline road just to see how I felt.  I chatted with Breein until we got to the trail.  At that point I decided I felt pretty good and decided to start pushing.  I went on up the trail, passing a few people but generally just keeping the pace a little bit faster than I normally would.  I knew that some of the other HUMR's had bolted out of the gate and by about mile three I had caught up with Shawn.  We motored along for a bit going up a hill.  Close to the top I decided to pass her.  Most of the next few miles were uneventful.  It was a gorgeous day, temps were perfect for me, and i felt good.  I could see Aric up ahead and he was moving along pretty good as well.  I blew through the first aid station.  I figured that since this was just a marathon length race, I would fuel and drink like I would for a marathon.  I still had plenty of fluid left in my two bottles, and I had no need to extra food, so on I went.  Pretty soon the second aid station came along.  I did refill my bottles here.  I knew it would be awhile until the next station and there was some serious terrain to cover in the meantime.  Shortly after the second aid station we hit the green monster.  This is a roughly 650'-700' climb in a half mile.  Straight up the mountainside.  If you have climbing legs at all, this is the place to use them.  I did manage to catch and pass a few people here.  I guess all of the hills I've been training on have helped a little.  Once at the top, there's some nice downhill running for a couple of miles until you get to a canyon that takes us back up the mountainside.  This canyon is probably my favorite part of the course.  Steep and rocky with a creek coming down it, waterfall at the top, gorgeous.  During this climb I did manage to catch Aric and motor on up, but he kept with me, just a little behind.  After awhile climbing, we hit the next aid station at Indian Spring.  Here we get to fill our bottles straight from the spring.  Runners were asking if the water was safe to drink.  Must have been, I didn't get sick.  After Indian Spring, we did a little more climbing until we hit the high point on the course, an alpine meadow that's very cool to run through.  This is followed by a screaming technical, rocky descent.  I don't do well on that kind of stuff and Aric just blew past me here.  I guess I'm too afraid of falling and doing some serious damage to let it rip.  The next section is my least favorite part of the course, the climb up through Circle Springs.  This part of the trail has always had shoe sucking deep mud with no way to avoid it.  Add to that it's a steep uphill climb and you have a recipe for a slow grinding trek.  This year it was completely dry and I was able to make some reasonably decent time going up.  I knew once I got to the top, it was a slow descent to the next aid station and not too far to the finish.  The last aid station was run by a bunch of high school girls and naturally every time a runner came through they would yell and scream.  You could hear them a half mile away.  Stopped here to grab a couple of cups of Coke and left.  The next part is a climb, but it's not too bad.  I managed to catch some of the slower half marathoners as I went up.  By now I knew I was on a PR pace and tried to pick it up a little more.  Once at the top of this climb, the last few miles are all downhill and easy running.  Here I tried to let it rip and get done a little quicker.  I ended up crossing the finish line in 5:20, easily my best time on this course.  It was good enough for 3rd in my age group and 22nd overall.  The HUMR's did pretty good as a group.  Britta won the women's race and crushed the course record by a substantial amount.  Shawn came in 5th female and 1st in her age group.  Aric ran it in about 6:10 and finished 15th.  Ryan finished in 4:44 good enough for 12th overall.  Breein did pretty good as well, finishing in 5:46, 5th female and 2nd in her age group.  Alicia isn't listed in the results for some reason but I think she finished around 10th place female.
All in all it was a pretty good day.  Lots of fun was had on the trail by everyone.  Miles - 26.1

Total miles for the week - 61.4