Park City Half Marathon

I ran a half marathon yesterday.  I did OK, but not as well as I had hoped.  My thought was to run 8:00 minute miles, but I only managed to do 8:15's.  I can attribute my lack of performance to doing almost everything wrong:

• Ate a big, heavy dinner
• Drank too much wine, to assure restless sleep and dehydration
• No speed training, just long distance for the mountain run I did. Amazing how very long, slow runs don't make you faster.
• Went out too fast and got passed as I slowed down.  I normally start slow and speed up, passing people.
• Ran erratic paces from mile to mile.  No idea why.

I still managed 70th place out of 600 runners, so top 12% or so.  I was 6th in my age group.  I can't wait until next year when I am 50.  If I ran the same pace as I did this year, I would be 6th in my new age group.  Crap.  Don't these people slow down?

I have been amazed at how the women runners are getting more and more competitive.  In this race, they finished 4th, 5th, 10th and 11th overall.  It won't be long before they start winning.

For anyone who is considering running a half or full marathon, they should consider the Park City ones.  They are very well run. Timing, shirts, food, aid stations, road markings, traffic management and such were all excellent.  The marathon is a tough one with some hills (no mountains) and our traditional lack of oxygen. The winner did just over 3 hours and I think it is very rare for anyone to beat 2:45.