SOJO Race Report

Saturday was my last planned race of 2013, the SOJO (short for the host city of South Jordan) Half Marathon. I did a trail run in July, but this was my one and only traditional road race of the year. I was reminded of the fun atmosphere at these races, and also of the slightly different crowd than triathlons. You've got your hardcore pure runners, lots of people there just for fun, and others who are deeply concerned about their outfits and playlists who love to toot their own horn. This reminds me of a typical conversation I hear at least three times a week at my day job. 

"So I ran 4.3 miles this morning" (woman training for a half marathon, has run a few before)

"OMG you ran over FOUR miles this morning? That is insane! Are you sore?"

"No I feel great, I totally could've gone 5."

"Wow, you are so good. That is crazy." 

"Yeah, and my pace was under 10 minutes per mile."

"That is insane."

News of this intense workout is then shared with several others and re-visited multiple times throughout the day.

Of course, I document some training and racing in this blog, so perhaps I'm being hypocritical... that said, outside of the blog I hardly ever bring up triathlon/racing/training around others. I guess I'm not opposed when people find out that I do triathlons, have done an Ironman, etc, but I don't go out of my way to advertise it. When I hear conversations like the one I described, I just have to bite my tongue. The alternative would be butting in with "that's awesome. I ran xx miles at xx pace yesterday. And I swam for an hour the day before. Isn't that INSANE?!?"

Ok, I'm off my soap box. At the end of the day I do respect anyone who gets out and races... it takes guts to put yourself out there.

So here's a quick race recap. With only three training runs over 7 miles since May, I went into this as a "fun run." My wife and kids are out of town, so what else am I supposed to do... lay around in my underwear all day? I debated whether or not to push hard, ultimately deciding to target 7:30 pace through 5 and see how I felt from there. I stuck to the plan, swallowing my pride when a man seemingly in his 60's cruised past me at mile 3. I experimented with my nutrition at this race as well, carrying EFS Liquid Shot and taking hits of it as I felt like it. I got to mile 5 and thought "crap, I actually feel good... I guess I should go for it." I stepped it up a notch, and was surprised how strong I felt the rest of the way. There are multiple variables, of course, but I'm giving a chunk of the credit to the magic potion I was sipping.

I closed out the last 5k hard, picking off lots of runners including the older superman from earlier. Kicking it in, it was annoying to hit 13.1 miles with the finish line still not in sight. They caused me 0.4 miles of unnecessary suffering!  :)

~13.5 mi 1:37:45   
7:15 pace

32/588 O
4/36 AG