The Mt. Nebo half marathon was a new race for this year. There were around 350 entrants. The race started by Payson Lakes up Payson canyon and was almost entirely run inside of the canyon. The race starts just over 8100 feet and ends around 4800 feet. Altogether it is around a 3400 foot elevation drop. There are just a couple of short, not very steep, uphill sections somewhere in the last three miles. Other than that, it is a very, very downhill course. I’m not aware of any other half marathon that has this kind of consistent downhill for almost its entire course. The pace that I was able to keep up was completely ridiculous.
I think I ended up on the first bus and found nice starting area with music playing, enough port-o-potties, at least for us early people, and some fire pits with nice fires in them. I had figured it would be pretty chilly at that altitude and it was.
The race started on time at 7 am, and as we lined up I looked around and didn’t see anyone I recognized that was faster than I was, and really only recognized one other person (David Taylor) who I have seen come in close behind me in a few other races over the last year. I realized I may get lucky with the small field and have a chance to take the lead.
As seems to be typical of a canyon race start, a car decides it wants to go through the thick crowd of people about 1 minute before the race is going to start, so we all had to get out of the way for the car. The timing mats were set, the horn sounded, and off we went.
Immediately David Taylor was out in front with me following close behind. We quickly lost the field and I never saw any other racers. David built around a 20-30 second lead over the first 4-5 miles, and then I slowly reeled him back in. I tucked in behind him for about 1.5 miles and as we were coming up to the aid station at mile 7 I decided to take my gel. As I pulled out my gel my pill container that I carry with my S-caps and Tums went tumbling out of my pocket. I looked back as it bounced down the road and contemplated for a millisecond on whether I should go get it. I decided we were going fast enough that I wouldn’t need it, though I thought the quads may end up cramping up with the crazy downhill. David stopped drink at the aid station and I pulled in front of him and he never caught back up. I thought I heard him closing behind me a couple of times which was a very good motivation to keep the hammer down as much as possible. The course flatens out a little the last 3 miles, so only a 1-3% grade instead of 6-8% which was some good chunks of the course.
I finished first overall, about a minute ahead of David Taylor. Thanks to the steepness of the course I set PR’s in every distance. Love the super ridiculous aided PR’s
5k - 16:16, 10k - 32:09, 10 miles- 52:43, 13.1- 1:10:17
1. 5:22 190 bpm
2. 5:11 185 bpm
3. 5:12 173 bpm
4. 5:03 170 bpm
5. 5:05 175 bpm
6. 5:11 174 bpm
7. 5:08 173 bpm
8. 5:27 174 bpm
9. 5:24 176 bpm
10. 5:31 178 bpm
11. 5:50 179 bpm
12. 5:49 180 bpm
13. 5:49 182 bpm
.02 5:27 Looks like another short half.
