Artichoke's Running Blog (Ken Spence)

Wasatch Back Relay

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Location:

Tooele & Ivins,UT,USA

Member Since:

Oct 30, 2008

Gender:

Male

Goal Type:

Age Division Winner

Running Accomplishments:

St. George Marathon 20-year Club (completed 26)

Boston Marathon 2006, 2007, 2008, 2016, 2017 (+DNF 2011)

Running for 39 years, logged 58,000 miles since 1982. 38 marathons.

Old Man PR's:

5K = 19:58 - July 4th Freedom Run 7/4/08

6K = 26:38 - Cold Turkey Rrrun, 11/23/06

10K = 43:00 - Deseret News, 7/24/08

1/2 Marathon = 1:32:54 - Hobble Creek, 8/23/08

Marathon = 3:23:13 - St. George, 10/4/08 (Boston Qualifier)

Boston Best: 3:35:07, 4/21/08 (Boston Qualifier)

Boston Worst:  DNF, 4/18/11 

 

Short-Term Running Goals:

Keep running!

Long-Term Running Goals:

Keep running for another 20 years.

Personal:

Married for 44 years to a wonderful and supportive wife. She's run 2 marathons herself in our earlier years so that helps.  4 boys, all married, and 10 grandchildren.  2 sons are runners. I celebrated 39 years of running madness, insanity, or at least OCD, on August 23rd, 2021. 

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Miles:This week: 0.00 Month: 0.00 Year: 0.00
Nike Free Lifetime Miles: 22.50
Saucony Peregrine Trail Lifetime Miles: 318.15
Asics 2000 Aqua #2 Lifetime Miles: 419.50
Asics 2000 Aqua #3 Lifetime Miles: 393.10
Asics 2000 Gray/Yellow Lifetime Miles: 610.30
Saucony Peregrine Trail #2 Lifetime Miles: 168.40
Asics 2000 Aqua #4 Lifetime Miles: 355.00
Race: Wasatch Back Relay 35:00:00
Slow milesFast milesTotal Distance
6.907.3014.20

Wasatch Back Relay, legs 24 and 36.  Running at the start of day from Rockport reservoir up gradually through Peoa and into Oakley.  Starting at 5:57 a.m. and finishing right at 7:00 a.m.  Grabbed some hotcakes at eggs at the exchange and drove to South Summit High School for a little shut-eye.  I slept in the hallway for about 3 hours.  Then headed to Heber for Gina to start her final leg, running down into Charleston.  Ryan absolutely killed the Ragnar Hill!  He's amazing, not sure how a smoker can do that, but he did great!  He ran 7 minute miles on his first leg, including picking up our huge foam pencils that flew off of the Einstein van.  He carried them for over a mile.  The kid spent time in Iraq, so it was just a military drill to him.  A great guy.

Final leg no. 36.  Leg was extended from 6.9 to 7.3 miles.  Running mostly on trails that I thought were going to be wonderfully paved cycling trails.  WRONG.  After a mile or so we were on this steep downhill in Park City running from one residential area to another one below down some jeep trail that was so steep you could barely run on it.  Later out in the middle of the sage brush running on dirt roads.  Good thing the rain held off, or this leg would have been a mud run.  Felt the very best on this final leg, especially on the downhill slide into Park City High School, meeting the Einsteins team on the track in their nerdy professor coats and eyeglasses and finishing and getting our huge medals and the badge of honor window stickers at the finish line.  Treated to free pizza at the end.  A great event and whole different dimension to running.  Lots of folks made comments and felt that we should win the best decorated van award, something I did absolutely nothing to help with.  Thanks so much to the team.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Asics 2150 Gold #4 Miles: 14.20
Comments
From Burt on Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 19:16:20 from 72.223.90.79

Cool, choke. I ran leg 12 last year. Sounds like they changed it some.

From artichoke on Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 22:48:11 from 24.2.95.164

Yeah, they did. I thought you might be there this year. Maybe next? You've done other ones, I believe. How does Wasatch Back compare to the others? This was my fourth one and it has really grown since the first year I ran it.

From Burt on Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 23:10:17 from 72.223.90.79

I ran Wasatch Back in 2007 and 2010. There were 400 teams in 2007 and 1000 in 2010. It was crazy. Sometimes the van couldn't get to the exchange point before the runner! In fact, I had to wait 20 minutes before my van got to the finish line. Also, it's a lot more rugged than Vegas or Del Sol. Rugged = harder. But Wasatch Back is the most scenic.

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