SUCCESS!!!

Yesterday I successfully completed the St. George Marathon.

Wow.

I still can't believe that I did it. I've been training for this for about 10 months and I am so happy that I was able to do it without getting seriously injured. I have such a sense of accomplishment.

I want to preserve the day for posterity, so here goes on my recap of my marathon day:

MARATHON DAY

I slept over at my brother-in-law Wade's house because he was running the marathon with me and he lives closer to St. George. We weren't particularly interested in catching the very first shuttle buses up to the start line, which left at 4:00 in the morning. So we woke up around 4:15 and headed over, catching a shuttle around 5:00. As the bus was leaving town it started to rain, in what would be an ominous sign for the day's weather.

The bus ride to the start line traced the entire marathon route, so it was a little scary to see just exactly how far we would have to run that morning. It didn't help that the bus was taking it slow and it was raining pretty hard by that point. I understand that it took around 90 buses to shuttle all the runners up. 7,000 participants in the race. It was easy to tell the hard core runners just by looking at them. Wade and I? we did not look like hard core runners, but very much like the first time newbies that we were.

The bus arrived at the starting area -- a large stretch of the road that is sectioned off for the runners. There were thousands of people milling around in driving rain and strong head winds. The race organizers had set up rows of little bonfires and made available big garbage bags to help protect us from the rain. People were wearing garbage bags and huddled around the bonfires trying to keep warm. All in all a pretty miserable scene as we waited for the 6:45 start time.

The start time finally rolled around and we all pushed in together to squeeze through the start line so that the sensors could register each person's timing chip for the an official run time. It took Wade and I about 7 minutes from the gun start to get to the starting line. Everyone was bunched up together for probably the first half of the run before thinning out.

There was a consistent drizzle, occasionally increasing in strength to a good rain, until around 10:00 or 10:30. And the gray cloud cover never lifted throughout the entire morning, with temperatures hovering in the fifties for the whole race. With a pretty strong breeze bursting through every now and then to lower the effective temperature and maintaining the miserable weather conditions.

I didn't have an mp3 player to listen to anything throughout the marathon, so I was listening to the sound of my feet and the feet of hundreds of others around me pounding the pavement. Also there was at any given time a conversation going on between runners around me. For the first 6 or 7 miles I was running with a group of guys that kept calling out their pace time (around a 9:00 minute mile). At other times I heard various stories -- like marathon war stories. I overhead some people talking about meeting a guy at the Boston Marathon who had run 26 miles a day for 25 days in a row, with the Boston Marathon being on the 26th day. Woah. That's crazy.

There were aid stations every 2 miles beginning at mile 3, with water and gatorade, and sometimes Clif bars or ClifShots (packets of super-protein goop), and a few porta-potties. Sometimes there would be a line of a few people waiting for the porta-potty, but way more often I would be running along and see runners (both men and women) simply run off the side of the road and make use of a nearby bush or trees or outcropping of rocks to relieve themselves. This happened extremely often.

At about mile 7 we descended down into the small town of Veyo. After running through town we crossed a bridge and then began an ascent out of town that lasted for about a mile. Very tough hill to run up with an inordinate amount of people choosing to walk it instead of running. After that we entered Dammeron Valley, then Diamond Valley, then we passed Snow Canyon with some absolutely beautiful vistas, we then ascended Winchester Hill and began the final descents into St. George. I would say that about half of the run was a good down hill, a quarter fairly level, and a quarter was uphill.

The race organizers had set up mile markers every mile and I remember thinking that the markers were spaced out farther than I thought they should be; it felt like it took me longer than it should to get to the next mile marker. When I passed the 20-mile mark, I thought to myself, "this is now officially the longest run I have ever done in my entire life!"

Throughout the course the families and friends of runners had posted signs of encouragement and love. One of my favorite signs read "Running is a mental sport" followed immediately by a sign reading "And you're all insane!"

After my fast pace for the first 10 or so miles, I was forced to slow back to a much slower pace. After passing a number of people for the first 8 or so miles, it felt like the last 10 miles all I was doing was being passed. I was surprised though, that I was able to keep up a good pace, even if it was a slow pace, throughout most of the marathon; I only stopped to walk probably 3 or 4 times, for very short periods of time, with the longest walking break being about a minute long.

By the time we were coming into St. George there were around 3 miles to go. I was surprised at the number of people out along the route cheering the runners along. It was a nice boost to have so many people shouting encouragement. I was expecting to run the whole marathon in about 5 hours, trying to be realistic about my chances. I think that the amount of downhill running combined with my faster than normal start contributed to a faster time. When I turned the final corner and saw the finish line, I was surprised to see that the race clock read 4 hours and 44 minutes. And of course that was the clock measured from the gun time; it had taken me about 7 minutes to get to the starting line after the gun went off.

My official time: 4 hours, 37 minutes, 23 seconds.

!!!

Wow.

According to the official race results, I came in 3,515th place out of 5,030 that finished the race. About 70% of all finishers finished before me. The first place finisher finished in 2 hours, 22 minutes, right about the time that I crossed the half-way point.

Post-Race:

I have never been so sore in my entire life. My ankles are killing me and every muscle is in pain. It is extremely difficult to walk right now, but I know that things will get better. I'm pretty useless right now, as about the only time that I'm comfortable is when I'm laying in bed with about 1600 mg of ibuprofen in me. But man, what a feeling to have successfully run a marathon! I am so glad that I prepared adequately to be able to complete the run, and I am so grateful for Robin's continuing support of my training and helping me to accomplish my goal.

long run

This morning I ran for 16 miles. I got up at 5:00 and was out the door around 5:20. It took me just about 3 hours. I stopped briefly for some water and a protein bar half way through. I actually felt pretty good for about three quarters of it; the last quarter was pretty tough.

New Record ...

I ran 14 miles yesterday morning. Longest run ever for me.

It was tough, but I'm glad I did it. Just over a month to go until the marathon, I've got 2, maybe 3, more weeks before I need to taper off the long runs and rest up for the big one.

Still sore.

Feel the Burn

Last Saturday I ran 10 miles for the first time. Was quite the experience. I have a 5-mile route that starts and ends at our house so I just did that twice, with a little bit of walking and drinking water half way through. Ran in the evening after a long day; we had returned from camping overnight at our property in Duchesne and I had done yard work in the afternoon. The weather was interesting - it rained buckets on me a couple of times, but at least it cooled the temperatures down to a manageable level.

This week I ran 5 miles on Tuesday morning and just finished a 7-mile run this morning. I feel like my body is starting to get used to running those mid-distances (5 to 7 miles) without getting too fatigued. Will try for 12 miles on Saturday.

Thursday Evening Run

Ran Tuesday morning ... terrible run. Barely made it 4 miles while having to stop and walk about 3 times and plagued with intestinal troubles. Not fun. Worst run in a long time.

This evening was much better. Ran 7 miles. Pretty good pace, was able to get into a bit of a groove and keep it up with relatively little pain and discomfort.

Goal is to run 12 miles on Saturday. Time is running short ... have to start doing real long runs each weekend, increasing probably 2 miles each weekend for the next 5 or 6 weeks, then taper off before the marathon.

Mountain Running

I ran about 6 miles on Saturday morning up in the Kolob mountains near Zion National Park. We were camping out up there for the Beatty family reunion. Was a pretty good run, but the altitude made it a little more difficult than normal, plus there were lots of ups and downs.

Wednesday July 31

Ran 5 miles this morning. That makes 16 miles over the past 3 days. I think that's an all-time high for me. Will rest tomorrow then try to do a good long run on Saturday. Will be a little difficult because we will be up in the mountains for the Beatty family reunion, but Wade has indicated that he wants to do a long run Saturday morning so maybe between the two of us we will get the motivation to do it.

Today for the first time I tried some "Fartlek" training, which the coolrunning website defines as "bursts of speed in the middle of a training run." At 3 random points during my 5-mile run I decided to up the pace for a short distance. I can't say that I was breaking any land speed records, but it was definitely faster than my usual shuffling slow pace. Feeling pretty good so far.

Have gone back to iceing down my knees and shins after each run. I have a reusable gel pack that I keep in the freezer for such occasions.