OK, here it is. Better late than never. It was a bad omen when I got up to meet my neighbor Richard at 3am and there was a pretty stiff wind. We drove down to Provo and caught the bus. It never ceases to amaze me how long these bus rides are. We have to run all this? Crap. So we get off on the east side of Wallsburg. They had bunches of campfires for us to stay warm and plenty of pops. My plan was to get with the 4 hour pace group and stay there. I haven't trained as well as I wanted to over the months, there just wasn't time. Family, work, yard, these all took priority and my training suffered but I wanted to leave it all on the course and go for it. It was crowded and I couldn't start up by the 4 hour pacer but I wasn't worried, keeping a good pace would eventually catch me up. Mile 1 - 8:49, 2 - 8:34, 3 - 8:45. Good easy miles at a perfect pace. My breathing was relaxed and I felt great, optimistic. Mile 4 had the first aid station and I slowed for a drink, 9:02. Mile 5 - 8:58, 6 - 9:26 (had to find a tree), 7, 8:57. All these miles were right were I wanted them to be. I didn't want to go too fast over the 4 hr pace. The start of mile 8 I took a gel and couldn't get the dang thing open so there was more walking here than I wanted. It also marked the end of the sheltered Wallsburg canyon. It also started some big hills. I didn't know this section was going to be so hard. A big part of it was the head wind. Wallsburg was sheltered but we were out now. So this mile 8 was a big 10:46. I wasn't tired here because I purposely took it easy. I was more worried about conserving energy on the hills than I was with time. Mile 9 - 9:35, 10 - 8:48. 9 was rolling hills and 10 was mostly down hill. I picked up a little time here. 11 - 9:03, 12 - 9:49, 13 - 9:43. These miles were more rolling hills and head wind. At the half way point I was 2 minutes behind but the big hills were behind me. There was plenty of time left. I opened the throttle a little to start to make up those 2 minutes. Nothing happened. I was running out of gas already. My poor training of the last 30 - 45 days was showing its results. 14 - 9:58, 15 - 10:18, 16 - 11:07, 17 - 11:31, 18 - 12:03. Look at that deterioration. Bad news. 19 - 9:57 (I don't know why this one was faster), 20 - 11:09. Mile 21 I stopped to say hi to Smooth. Yay. She put a smile on my face and probably cut 2 or three minutes out of my next few miles. Thanks Smooth! 21 - 12:06, 22 - 11:44, 23 - 12:14, 24 - 16:24. Mile 24 I realized I had no shot at a PR (4:25). I know I'd lost the 4 hours long ago but this one I lost a lot of motivation. I didn't want the last 3 miles to take 45 minutes but it didn't look good. 25 - 12:46, 26 - 12:33. I devised a method to keep myself motivated for the last 2 miles. I had to keep the current mile pace under 13 minutes. When I got well into the 12s I afforded myself a small walk until the pace started to approach 13 again. Finally I reached the final half mile and I found the will to finish it off. I was done with this damn thing. It may sound like a giant complaint depressing blog entry but it was still fun. The back of the shirt they gave out says it all. "Pain You Enjoy" | 