Top of Utah Half Marathon

Andrea bringing it home to win the Top of Utah half-marathon in a new PR of 1:17:52

Yesterday we ran the Top of Utah 1/2 Marathon up in Logan. This has become one of the more competitive races in Utah, and yesterday's edition did not disappoint everyone who came out to watch.

Andrea emerged victorious again, winning her 3rd half-marathon of the year in 1:17:52 (a new PR). I had a battle on my hands against Paul Petersen, and he came out on top, but I still finished in 1:05:40, the fastest I have ever run 13.1 miles BY FAR! We are pretty pleased with how things are going... these are exciting times for us!

We've written up full race reports on our fast running blogs, and they are linked below. Check those out to see how the races played out. The Herald Journal also wrote a nice article about the race, so I've linked that as well, and then put up some pictures...

Article from the Herald Journal: "Half Marathon Showdown at TOU"

Jake's Full Race Recap
Andrea's Full Race Recap

Start of the race... you can't miss those ViziPro singlets!

Out on the course


Andrea on the course

Final stretch


Acknowledging the crowd with some sort of weird 3 finger salute. I'm not sure what I am doing at the end of long races sometimes :-)




The tape waiting for Andrea...

Andrea breaking the tape on her 3rd half-marathon victory this year


All smiles!

Paul and I chatting in the finishing chute

Team Saucony post race

Andrea and I with our awards

Dart Challenge 5K

This past Saturday Andrea ran a non-aided 5K PR in the Dart Challenge 5K, taking second place in a time of 17:25. That would convert to close to 17-flat at sea level, which is pretty darn quick! Since I was out of town, I ran a 5000m time trial on the track the following day (15:22).

Click the link to see Andrea's FULL RACE REPORT.

Here's a shorter summary:

On Saturday Aug. 21, I ran a local 5K race to benefit the Davis High XC Team (they are one of the top teams consistently in the nation and have over 80 kids!). The Dart Challenge 5K has a long tradition and is one of the flattest and fastest courses in Utah. It has quite a few turns that make running tangents very important, but overall a great race.

My goal was to PR by 24 seconds and run a 17:30. Luckily Morgan Haws, a BYU All-American in the 10K, was there to push me. We ran together for about 2.7 miles at a steady hard pace until she surged and beat me by about 5 seconds. My splits were 5:31, 5:35, 5:40 with a finishing time of 17:25. Although I wasn't able to put in that extra gear at the end, I was still quite thrilled with my performance. Not to mention a 29 second PR. This is definitely a mental boost going into a half marathon next weekend, as well as for the fall season.

This Saturday (Aug 26) Andrea and I are running the Top of Utah 1/2 Marathon. "TOU" is one of the most competitive (last year the winning men's time was 1:05:10 by a Kenyan who has run 13:25 for 5K!) races in Utah, and the fields appear to be stacked. Its going to be a great finish to the "summer season" before we start building the mileage back up for the big fall races.

Here's what the summer training looked like...

Random running and rafting photos

Occasionally some photos fall into my hands after I've already blogged about the events they were associated with... here are a few more good ones from the Park City 15K and the Tennessee Whitewater Rafting trip.

A tram ride to 11,000 is not cheating

Andrea and I with my Dad on Hidden Peak

A few weeks ago we got some free Snowbird tram passes at a local road race. We had a few hours to kill this afternoon before my Mom and sister got up to SLC, so my Dad, Andrea, and I took the tram up to Hidden Peak. We didn't even feel guilty about not hiking up, as Andrea ran a 29 second 5K PR yesterday, and I ran a 5K time trial this morning, beating my best time from college by 8 seconds. We were also a bit tired from our Uintas fishing trip.

Snowbird is in full Oktoberfest mode, so it was a fun time. With temps pushing towards 100 degrees in the valley, it was nice to be in the cool air of the mountains.

Some photos below (and more here: Snowbird Oktoberfest)

Fishing in the High Uintas

This past weekend I went on a camping / fishing trip up to the Uinta Mountains, off the Mirror Lake Highway. My Dad flew in from Arizona, and two of my uncles (and one of their friends) flew in from Los Angeles. We camped at Trial Lake and fished at a bunch of the lakes up in that area.

This was my first fishing trip in about 15 years, and I had a heck of a great time. The rest of the guys are excellent fishermen, and were hooking trout in big numbers. I did manage to catch two rainbow trout, so I'll call that a success!

Great company, and a great area of wilderness. Can't beat these kinds of weekends! As an added bonus, on Friday evening we saw a bald eagle fly over us 3 times... an unreal moment.

Below are a sampling of our photos... more can be found here: Uintas Fishing


Our crew, from left to right: Lamont, Uncle Richard, Dad, Uncle John, and me