My friend Nate and his sister Liz were running the Ogden marathon, and I got to pace. I planned to meet them around mile 8, just after the turn to run around the lake, but I saw Kelli running down, so I tagged along with her for a couple miles. She ran well! Shortly after getting dropped, I saw Amber, and ran with her for a mile or so. She PRed by a long ways. It was fun to see waves of runners coming along, with clusters around the pace groups. I heard the 3:35 pacer quit at the half, leaving the course, tossing the balloons and signs in the trash and disappearing into the crowd. It would be pretty discouraging to be part of THAT pace group. I saw several other neighbors and friends, before finally spotting Nate and Liz. We ran from 9-19. Liz was doing her 1st marathon. She was having a tough go, more mental than physical, so we did all we could to keep her distracted and moving along. I laughed at one point she said, "I thought this was going to be fun." She mostly held on to 10 minute pace, so it was easy to keep up an endless stream of prattle to keep her distracted. At the parting of the ways I was tempted to continue along with them, but logistically, it wouldn't have worked out very well to collect the car parked in Huntsville. So I turned around at mile 19 and headed back up the canyon. I wanted to run 20ish miles, and pick things up at the end. My final miles were considerably faster, but not as quick as the couple I ran with Kelli. My garmin is giving up the ghost, so I can't get any numbers, but I stuck pretty close to 7:20 mm. I'm making long run plans for 5/26, pondering an up-down on skyline drive, or some BST nonsense, shooting for 17-20 miles, depending on difficulty of the trail. Company would be welcome!
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