St. George Marathon 2012 Race Report

This was a different kinda year, Craig was training for a sub 3:00 marathon and pulled a groin muscle in June, then in August had a disc compressing the sciatic nerve with so much pain he couldn't walk.  So much for sub 3 plans.  I have IMAZ on the front burner and decided to treat this as my last longest run, and guess who had to run.  Amazing huh, but Craig decided to give it a try, as always the great and spacious vans were available, they just cruise by with their doors open  beckoning any runner who looks even slightly weary, so he went out with the resolve to give it his best, with the van always being an option (yeah right, if you know him you know that's not really true).
It was a strange feeling this year, usually I'm excited and can't sleep, overwhelmed with anxiousness, but this year-nope.  Maybe 'cause it was just Craig and me for the first time, I'm not sure.  I had absolutely no expectation except to hang with the last pace group which would make Snow Canyon Parkway by the cut-off time.
Speaking of pace groups, there seemed to be so many more runners this year, I'm not sure if that was really so but the road to start was packed full of runners, it can take  ten minutes after the start just to get to the start line, (providing a great opportunity to hit the port-o-pots without a line)!  But anyway, back to the pace groups, the five hour group was right where we were getting on the road, so hey, why not, I haven't broken 5 hours yet, lets just see how long we can keep up.  Craig was doing great, I was ok, I would drift to the back of the group and then catch up a little, keeping the balloons in sight most of the time.  I lost the pace group at some point, but Craig said he could see them and I again managed to catch up, drift back, catch up etc.  At about mile 19 we were still with the pace group but Craig was ready to walk and I unintentionally pulled ahead of the pacer, once I realized I had done that my only thought was, if I can stay in front I will break 5 hours. No really, I guess I had more thoughts, like "anyone can run faster, just depends on how much you want to hurt afterwards"--Craig.  "if you hold back on top you can negative split this", "stick out your chest, open your mouth and suck oxygen"--or something to that effect-- I could still do math in my head (unusual for me at mile 19 and figured I would really have to start to push it right now, to pr, so off I went.  I finished at 4:58, Yay--that first number is a 4 not a 5!!! 4:55 was my moving time, now I've got bigger goals in mind for next year, but if I can just keep shaving off time I will be happy.  I was most excited about a stat on my results--for the final 7.5 miles I passed 297 people and 6 people passed me!  I don't know where my legs came from, maybe all the yoga, but my fastest mile was mile 21.
Craig finished a few minutes after me, (that will never happen again I am quite sure!) but I waited in chute the and gave him his medal as he finished.
This morning I signed Brent, Kerri and me up for the runners series, right now we are thinking about doing the St. George Half in January and Lake to Lake if we can pull off a team in March.  At least Ker and I are thinking that, we'll se what Brent is down for when he's back from Cambodia.