June has come and with that brings the annual American Fork Half Marathon. I ran it last year and fell in love with everything about it…the purpose, the heartfelt messages along the trail, the organization and how well it was run, everything! For that reason, I decided then that I would give it another go the following year.
Race day fell on June 15th this year. As with last year, it was extremely well organized. The race started exactly on time at 6:00 am. My good friend Kristy and her husband also ran the race so we got up bright and early and made our way to the starting line at about 4 am. Last year my finish time was 1:53. The night before the race, I gave myself a pep-talk. I decided I would do my best to run it a little harder this year.
After the gun went off and I headed down the canyon I realized I was keeping a really good pace for me and I felt great. I was steadily running under a 7:30 (keep in mind this is downhill). I kept the 1:45 pacer in my sites nearly the whole race so I knew I was on track to beat my old time by several minutes.
As I came out of the canyon and the downhill turned into flat and some rolling hills, I felt my pace drop. Thankfully my dear friend, Claire, met up with me at the mouth of the canyon and ran with me for the last five miles. She kept me motivated to keep trying hard. Although there was a mile or two that I am not too proud of, I was very pleased with my overall performance. I didn’t quite catch the 1:45 pacer, but I wasn’t far off with a time of 1:46, averaging a tad over 8 min per mile. That means I shaved off 6 minutes from my time last year!
I am not certain if I will try this race or attempt a different one next year, but if I do, you can bet I will have a new goal to beat. I wonder if I trained a little harder if I could pull off 1:40?! I guess we’ll have and see next year.
Kristy and I…best (and fastest) running partner ever!
Brett, Kristy, me and Claire (Yep, I look like a midget squished between all my tall friends!)
Look at that awesome group of people that came and cheered me on! Could I be any luckier?!
And for the sweetest part…Seth didn’t let me down this year. Jake and he left the house around 11:00 pm and drew awesome chalk designs along the trail to encourage and cheer me on. I heard they didn’t get into bed until after 1:00 am and they still made it out to cheer me on at 6:00 am. I sure do love those boys!
MightyJohnsons 