Utah Valley Marathon

06/13/09-Utah Valley Marathon. What a great race. Truly a hidden gem of a marathon. I thought we were going to get rained on, but only ended up with a few sprinkles. The race began at 6:00 am and so I had to hop on the bus at 4:30, but still had to wait around about 50 minutes. We ran down Provo Canyon and then through Orem a bit until we picked up the Provo River Trail that ran almost to Utah Lake and then back over to the finish line at the Provo Towne Center. I ran the first half in 2:28 and felt really good. I thought the downhill would beat me up, but I felt pretty good. I was able to keep the pace on the flat the last half and finished the last half in 2:29 for a finish time of 4:57. Even though my family wasn't waiting for me at the finish, there was a Creamie and some cold chocolate milk, which were fantastic. I must say that this race was very well organized and I would highly recommend it to anybody.

Scott and I just got back from a 1-1/2 hour run on the Jordan River Parkway. Beautiful weather, lots of people. My trusty sports watch died on me yesterday and so I went to Wal-Mart and got a new one. Turned out to be on clearance for $10.00. What a deal!! However, when I used it this morning I noticed that it doesn't go past 60 minutes on the stopwatch, which is great if you only run 10k or less. But at my age and memory skills I need to know how many hours I've been running. Soooooo, I'll just have to get a different watch today. Gotta have the right tools for the trade. Next week is the Utah Valley Marathon.

Adoption Exchange 5k

My buddy Wes Hutchins and I ran the 5k at Murray Park last Saturday. There were about 400 people running, but most of them under 4 feet tall. This truly was a fun run. No clocks, no numbers and not much of a starting to line. The mayor said "Go!" and off we went. Two laps around the park. The first lap I finished in 10:10 and thought I was really cruising. It was nice to be near the front for once. I finished in the top 20, I'm pretty sure, in 20:40. My thought at that point was that it couldn't have been a full 5k if I finished more than three minutes faster than my best 5k. Sho'nuf it wasn't certified 5k. That's ok, because the Adoption Exchange netted $6k from the event, which was the real reason for the run. Besides, we run races to expand our wardrobe anyway:)