Provo River Half-Marathon

I love this race. If my memory is correct, this is the fourth time I've ran it. The course is down the Provo River trail and mostly shaded. On Saturday morning, I woke up at 3:50, got ready and headed down to Provo to pick up my bib number, get my timing chip and board the buses. The buses took us to the start and there we waited for about an hour and a half until the seven o'clock start time.

Those of you who have run any of the Provo River runs know they're not the most organized races in the world. This is the 18th Provo half-marathon and you'd think the organizers would have it down to a science . . . but they don't. The buses took the runners and dropped us off in a field. No one knew where the race started. About 7:00, Curt {the race organizer} came in his truck and yelled out the window, "Throw your drop-bags in here!" as he's driving off. All the runners are frantically trying to get their drop bags in the truck that's driving away. Luckily, I didn't take a drop bag so I didn't have to participate in all the chaos.

Shortly after 7:00, a car makes its way through the crowd and a couple of people set up the start and place the timing mats down so our chips will work. The race starts at 7:10 and we're off. It felt good to finally be running. I took my own water so I flew by all the water stations and downed a gu at mile 6. My goal time was 1:45 and I crossed the finish in 1:43:52. A new PR. This isn't the most organized race but since it's such a lovely course, I'm sure I'll be back to run it again and again.

A few thoughts:

• a deer was roaming around at the start and was letting people pet it.
• this race has the most females I've seen that run in full make-up: eye shadow, mascara, eyeliner, lipstick. Interesting.
• a couple of 13 year-old boys started the race by me and after we'd run a few minutes, I heard one of them say, "I think we've ran a mile already." He asked me how far we'd run, I checked my garmin and it said .6 miles. It might have been a long race for those two.
• this was my "easiest" half-marathon. In all the half-marathons I've ran there's been a point where I've had to dig deep mentally and physically but this half-marathon I felt strong and energized the whole race. I'm pretty sure I can thank my rough eighteen-mile run last Saturday. Compared to that, this was a walk in the park.
• This may go down in the books as my fastest half-marathon. I'm not sure I have it in me to get a faster time. But, you should never say never. Maybe with Lindy pacing me, I can break 1:40. Maybe.
• I crossed the finish line, walked straight to my car and drove home so I could make it back for my husband's tennis game.