Supposed to be working this weekend but Friday afternoon I got a call that I'd be off until Tuesday. Great news since I was given an entry last year to Ogden. I dropped the kids off at four am at the neighbor's and barely caught the 5am VIP bus. Pretty cool to talk to Fritz and Bryant on the way up, even though I fell asleep for about the whole ride. I had no idea how to run this. Been buried at work for 5 weeks and nothing resembling training. With a lot of mountain time I figured I'd be strong but slow. Pretty much how it was. At least I know I've kept a fair fitness base. I ran with Curtis Epply through mile 13. Curtis and I have ran Ogden the last five years and I usually catch him about mile 20. He's been dying for a master's win and today he was much quicker. We came through the halfway at 1:18 and some change. I hit kind of a wall very quick and walked through the mile 14 aid station. I put some serious thought into waiting for the Sub 3 group of twelve who were shooting for a three hour today. But I caught my wind almost immediately and so I backed off to a 6:40 for a few miles. I still had visions of crashing though, I have not ran any long runs at pace. Curtis and I had been trading off and it was good to have someone to talk to for most the race. At 18 he said he was going to put in a few fast downhill miles. I was more than happy surviving where I was at. At 23 I could feel it coming back but just didn't have the time to catch back up to Curtis. Kind of surprised by surviving this race. I think the hiking and trail time have held a base for me. | 