Journey from 238.5 lbs to 2:38:30

I went out today with the goal of keeping my pace in the 6:40's as long as I could in hopes of breaking 3:00 in my first official marathon. My split times were 6:49, 6:43, 6:43, 6:54, 6:49, 6:49, 7:12, 7:21 (stopped to get rocks out of shoe), 6:43, 6:41, 6:50, 6:37, 13 -6:40, 6:47, 6:52, 6:33, 6:33, 6:39, 6:40, 6:49, 6:45, 8:00 (emergency bathroom), 7:01, 6:55, 7:07, 1:41

I felt great until mile 23 when my heart rate  finally got into the 170's and suddenly I couldn't keep my speed up anymore.  My heartrate was basically in the 150's until mile 22.  I did get attacked by a bird twice by the golf course. I ran it's wing into the back of my head as it dive bombed me.  Scared me, maybe that is what drove my heart rate up and over the edge. That's right, blame the bird.

Overall, I am very pleased, just wish I would have worn the gaiters and didn't have my bowel issues and then I would have broken 3:00.  There's always St. George. It was great to run into my wasatch back team at the mouth of the canyon to provide some needed energy, and then my family and parents came and watched me go several times from there until the end.  

I ended up 39th overall and 9th in my age group 35-39 I think it was broken down to. Not a bad first effort I would say.  Look forward to doing some actual speed work and see what I can really do for St. George.

I was on the Sprint Roadrunners team this year for the Wasatch Back Relay.  It was a fantastic time.  We, me and 11 others, started the race at 2:00pm.  There were approximately 1050 teams in the race.  We started after around 970 other teams who began starting from 5am.  We ended up passing around 930 teams over the 22 hours, and held off being run down by the eventual winners, Nordic Track team, by 4 minutes.  We had a four hour head start on them, and needed it to hold them off.  The temperature was great, a little warm on the first few legs, and no bad weather.  We ended up 7th overall and won our sub-masters (over 30) division by approximately 90 minutes, for this teams 3rd year in a row of winning the division.  My first year running with this Spring team..  

 I ran

Leg 2, 6.7 miles, 44:43, 6:40 pace. 32 RKs, Max HR 179, +487, -377

Leg 14, 3 miles, 19:07, 6:22 pace.14 RKs, Max HR 200, +364, -283

Leg 26, 3.3 miles 23:52, 6:29 pace, 33 RKs, Max HR 198, +210, -139