Salt Lake Half Marathon & Relay - RunHalf Marathon

Tried to follow Coach Mikes pacing advice:

"5 miles at Zone 1/2 - meaning let your HR climb into Z2 on the hills, but save it for later mostly. Don't kill it until you are REALLY warmed up. Let the others go and burn themselves out."

"Then 5 miles at Z2/3 - start to work here - if it's downhill, you will NOT see the HR climb in relation to your perceived effort SO, think about your effort, not HR here - push yourself as you would if you were running a Z3 effort - then..."

"The last 5K you can let it rip! Push as hard as you can here, Z4 into Z5 and see what happens - you should be able to pass many people who took it out too fast - make sure you hydrate as best you can at the aid stations and save something for the last 5k."

It was tough keeping the HR in z2 on the climb as EVERYONE seemed to pass me. Had to walk a lot to keep the HR down. And even so was at the bottom of z3 by the top. But I felt good stamina wise and was more than ready to get my legs moving, though they felt surprisingly fatigued.

Took the HR slowly up on the downhill. Stamina felt great, and I was passing a lot of peeps (unfortunately not many in my AG). However, my legs were really taking a pounding . . . still I just kept it on cruise control since I felt good otherwise and took the HR up about a beat per mile.

By the time I hit the last 5k and took it to LT -- my legs were toast. I had plenty of juice but legs were absolutely wasted. Had to stop and walk quite a bit and by the last mile wondered if I could even jog it in. I did and managed a good clip the last 400 yds. (coming a few seconds over two hours).

As far as the HR went the pacing felt good it was the muscle fatigue that got me.

(lap data: missing the ~first two miles):

Mile Avg Pace Avg HR

3- 10:23 158 (bottom of zone 3)
4- 11:42 159 (top of climb) legs surprisingly tired
5- 8:22 162
6- 7:53 163
7- 8:02 163
8- 8:05 164
9- 8:28 166 (zone 4)course starts to flatten out
10- 8:44 165 legs really feeling hammered here
11- 7:55 173 (LT)
12- 9:20 165 legs are toast; have to walk/jog
13- 9:40 162 lot of walking; not sure I can run it in; but finish last ~400 yds with a sprint of sorts



Run my 15 miler to Lil Cottonwood Canyon (somewhat similar climb and descent, though not as steep) last Saturday as planned instead of Monday four days before the race. I didn't get any base benefit for this race and I don't think my legs had a chance to fully recover from this weeks runs -- especially by adding the extended stride workout on Wed. I had no clue how sore I would be from the strides on the dirt track after not doing them for so many months.

Get more sleep.

Probably not wear the long-sleeve dry-fit. It did keep me warm early but later in the race I noticed my arms holding a lot of heat.

Water. Bagel. Banana. Light stretching. Forgot to jog a cool down to move some of the lactate out.


Muscle fatigue. Lack of recovery from the weeks earlier workouts. Lack of sleep all week. But mainly muscle fatigue because of poor workout planning leading up to the race. Which is ironic considering all the work I put into making my long runs on hills for the last month.

The good news is I feel I would have easily beaten this time by 6-10 minutes had my legs been there.

Some more positives: 1) pacing felt good -- can't know for sure though with my legs as they were 2) stride turnover was consistently at 90 rpm both on the uphill and down (without the mp3 player). Tunes would have been nice and I debated whether to listen or not, but it was good practice not having it before the Ogden tri in two weeks.


Beautiful course. Stunning views to the top of Little Mt. as the sun came up. Short steep climb followed by a pounding downhill. Will be a good warm-up for the Ogden Valley Tri in two weeks.