R and J in the USA

November 16, 2024

We drove through the red rock country of southern Utah to St. George for the Snow Canyon 5K. It was a crisp, 40-degree, blue-sky Saturday morning as we rolled in to the race hub at Snow Canyon High School. And what we rolled in to was an event. The school stadium was bustling with the activity of a 5K, 10K, and half marathon that would have around three thousand finishers between the three races.

The 5K started on the high school track, turned east down a side street to the main road, did a clockwise north-south oriented oval around the high school/middle school campus and adjacent neighborhood, then ran back up the side street and turned back onto the school track for the finish. The first mile was mostly a gradual downhill, the second mile had about twice as much up as the first mile had down, and the third mile was mostly a gradual downhill.

It was a nice course to run. It was rarely flat, but had no serious hills. It was rarely straight, but did not have too many turns. And it was multi-terrained and visually interesting. It ran on track, recreational path, and street. It passed by schools, parks, and neighborhoods. There were green trees, brown desert shrubs, and red rock canyon walls, and white snow mountain peaks. There were even black lava fields.

Because we picked up our packets the day of the race instead of at packet pickup the night before, our race numbers were not in the chip timing system the day of the race. As a result, our times do not yet appear in the official results. Comparing our times to those in the official results shows that Julie finished 57^th out of 364 overall, 55^th out of 225 females, and 3^rd out of 42 in her age group. Ryan finished 11^th out of 364 overall, 9^th out of 139 males, and 1^st of 17 in his age group.

There were some serious runners in the half marathon. The top two runners both averaged 5:11 per mile (finishing in 1:07:51 and 1:07:54), and the top twenty finishers all averaged sub-6:00 miles. The top 10K finisher averaged 5:22 per mile, and the top 5K finisher averaged 5:57 per mile. Thus, the longest race of the day was the fastest and the shortest race was the slowest.

Full 5K results here. Full 10K results here. Full half marathon results here.

Detailed Race Report for Running Nerds

We both came into this race way more rested than our race earlier in the week on Monday in Colorado. Julie had finally managed to re-establish a few of her exercise routines that she had lost track off since Michigan and had gotten in a run and a strength training at some 8000 feet of elevation. Ryan had continued to nurse his calves well.

Julie came into the race with the continued focus of running every race in negative splits and at a recovery pace with the hopes that, before the trip was over, she might be able to get back to a real racing speed, maybe even shoot for a PR before all was said and done.

While we were getting ready for the race, it was clear that Ryan was ready to do some real running again after taking it easy in the last race. He was juiced up and doing warm ups like he meant to do some running. When he started running, he hoped to be back to a place where he could at least run eight minute miles and see how he was feeling.

Julie planned to take it easy and try to stay in the high nine’s for the first two miles before seeing what else might be left in the tank.

When the race started and the throngs of runners started out, Ryan took off with his old familiar pace showing up easier than he thought. He clocked in mile 1 at a 7:43. Julie found herself running a little faster than intended and worked to slow herself down a bit, clocking in mile one a little faster than planned at a 9:27. She started to fall for that old trick where it just felt so easy and her heart rate was so relaxed. It was long into mile 2 when she felt that now familiar feeling of a heart rate that, basically on a dime, went, nope – I don’t think so. She wasn’t running that fast at all, and mile 2 definitely had hills, but they were nothing terrible. She had to stop a few times just to get her heart rate down to a reasonable rate. With her commitment to get negative splits highly intact, Julie turned on the motors for the end of mile 2, running in the high sevens just to grab her negative split. She made it by hundredths of a second and clocked mile 2 in at 9:26. Whew! Made it. She slowed down to catch her breath, but mile 3 started out with a big downhill, so she didn’t have to stop to do it.

Ryan also had to work a little harder on the smallish hills in mile 2. He clocked in his first race of the trip without negative splits with a mile 2 of 7:52.

We both found ourselves feeling surprisingly solid on mile 3. Yes, there was plenty of downhill, but it wasn’t all downhill. Ryan had decided not to look at his watch after mile 2. He felt like he was comfortably cruising in mile 3, but was surprised post-race to find out he had dropped down to a 7:11 for that third mile. Julie found herself feeling stronger on a mile in the race than she had since the early days of the trip and was loving it. She was running a solid 8:52 and felt strong doing it. She was surprised to look down and see her heart rate was at a lofty 185. Too high! But the difference was it didn’t feel high like it had for the last few months. The high altitude workouts she’d done perhaps helped.

As Julie rounded the corner after mile 3 she heard a young woman huffing and puffing coming up behind her. She recognized those sounds. That was someone who was managing their pace and was deciding to leave it all on the course. Good for her, Julie thought as the girl muscled on. As Julie rounded the corner, she could see the girl struggling to keep up her strong finish, but giving it all she had. Julie had a moment of feeling bad knowing that she hadn’t put in her kick yet and had PLENTY left for a solid one and was aching to really let it rip. When Julie turned the corner, the girl had put in a sprint kick of her own. When Julie caught up to her, the girl tried to race Julie for a few seconds. It didn’t take long for her to realize it wasn’t happening. Julie crossed the finish line running at a 4:27 pace. This is obviously nothing compared to an elite sprinter that clocks in at about a 2:35 pace, but it is usually enough to leave folks that are running 28 minute 5Ks in the dust at the finish line. Of course, Julie is always aware that, no matter how much fun it is to gun it in these races, it has little to no consequence to anyone or anything. But this is one of the things we love about 5Ks. People who don’t know each other at all commonly lock onto each other and decide that is the person I am going to keep pace with or work to beat or not let beat me. It has no meaning in the world when the race is over, but during the race it is enough to consume someone and provide some rush of ambition and triumph that has meaning in itself. We have both found ourselves being that person in many races for someone else who would come up and tell us afterwards, whether they had beat us or we had overtaken them, and vice versa. It is one of the interesting and strange and fun phenomena about these events. If Julie had been that person for that particular girl on this race, she came close.

After the race, because our times weren’t in the official race report, we knew we wouldn’t be considered for age group awards. The awards were sharp. We decided to go up to the organizers just to find out where we would have been had we qualified for an award. In the end, it was the best of all worlds. Some other folks got to have the joy of taking home 1st for males age 50-59 and 3rd for females age 40-49, we didn’t have to figure out what to do with the actual award, and we walked away knowing that, hey, state #28 and we still got it.