Date: September 13, 2025 Participant: Sam Bertoch #2901 Race: 2025 REVEL Big Cottonwood Half Marathon Distance: 13.1 miles

Consistent Progress with a Strong Middle Performance Sam Bertoch, representing Draper, UT, displayed a solid race in the 2025 REVEL Big Cottonwood Half Marathon. He completed the 13.1-mile course in 1:41:02, maintaining a steady average pace of 7:42 min/mile. Particularly notable was Sam's first four miles, where he significantly improved his pace from 7:07 to 6:50 min/mile, positioning himself as high as 169th overall after the third mile. Despite a reduction in pace towards the end, his performance is an improvement over his last two races at this event, bringing down his elapsed time from 1:45:10 in 2019 and 1:44:06 in 2023. As part of Cirque du Sore Legs, Sam ranked 40th in his age division out of 3972 participants. Focusing on maintaining early race pacing consistency over longer distances could reduce time loss in later splits, as observed between miles 8 and 12. Continuing to build on these strengths will likely lead to even faster future performances.