Ogden Marathon. My watch completely died on me this afternoon, so I can't get at my mile splits, but I'll do the best I can off my memory. Here goes. Cody, Dan, James, and I stayed at James' inlaws in Willard, so we had about a 15-minute drive to the race busing area. Weather in Ogden at 5AM was pleasant, but too warm for 5AM. T-shirt and shorts were comfortable. Fortunately, once we bused up 1200' in elevation to the start line, the air was much more brisk, and good running conditions. No wind either. However, the temps in Ogden served as bad omen for what it would be like during the last few miles. The start line featured pretty much everyone I expected, so no big surprises there. After a false start, the race finally started for real, pretty much on-time. The first mile was slow, too slow: 5:42. I wanted 5:30s for the first 8 miles, which is a nice, fast, 1% grade downhill. So I sped up and no one sped up with me; I was all alone, and footsteps faded within a mile. My next 7 mile splits were pretty much all at 5:28. Seriously, it was weird, I was just locked into 5:28 until the downhill ended and we turned to go around Pineview. Everything was feeling good, and it felt like I had build a decent lead, so I decided to to maintain the same effort on the rolling hills around Pineview Reservoir. Same effort = slower pace, but I was fine with this, as I assumed everyone behind me would slow down too. Sure enough, my 5:28's turned into 5:40s. I wanted to hold this until Mile 17 or so, when the course veers downhill again. I hoped to even- or negative-split the race. Went through the half marathon in exactly 1:13:00. This was right where I wanted to be, especially given the warmer temps. Still no headwind of any sort, which was good. I was afraid when I broke away and went solo that I might hang myself out to dry if there was any sort of headwind, but so far so good. I could tell by the roar of the crowd that the next runners were about 2:00 behind me. This is good; if I can maintain for the rest of rolling section and then go back to sub-5:30s on the downhill part, I doubted that anyone would catch me. Did another 5:40, and then came to the only hill worth noting on the course. It is a decent climb, but nothing like Vejo; not too steep or too long. However, I had been experiencing mild stomach cramping for a little while, and it suddenly got a bit worse, to the point where it was slowing me down. I tried some breathing exercises, but the only thing that helped was grabbing my gut with my hand. Not an effective way to run a marathon. This resulted in a 6:10 mile and me walking through the next aid station. I knew that if I couldn't get back on track soon, my race was going south. It was frustrating because my legs still felt good. Walking through the aid station and taking a good amount of water seemed to help. I think my stomach was just upset from too much sugar from the Gu and PowerAid, and the water helped dilute it. In any case, after a bit more deep breathing exercises, I had worked the cramp out completely, and was rolling full-tilt again my Mile 17. The course resumed a big downhill starting right before Mile 18, as it winds down Ogden Canyon (1.8% downhill gradient). Mile 18 was 5:28 again, which made me laugh a little. I can't remember all my splits, but most were 5:30 or under, with a 5:20 as the fastest. My quads were feeling fatigued by Mile 20, but the rest of my systems still felt good. I wasn't breathing hard, I wasn't dehydrated, and I didn't feel glycogen-depleted. Quite a bit of general fatigue, but I could mentally focus through it. At Mile 20, I mentally turned the race into a 10K, and then mentally turned it into a 5K at Mile 23. I was drinking quite a bit of water and PowerAid at aid stations, but was dousing my head and body with even greater amounts of water. This kept me wet and cool between aid stations, and also shocked my nervous system from the sudden cold, and caused me to increase my pace. Ogden Canyon spit me out onto the Ogden River Parkway (a paved bike trail) around Mile 23. At this point I was smelling the barn enough to get excited about finishing strong, plus kept trying whatever I could think of to give me adrenaline surges and internal encouragement. I was dousing myself with even more water, and then doing double-fisted slam-dunks of the paper cups into the trash bins, while grunting. Seriously. The volunteers and half marathoners I was passing must have thought I was nuts, but I was still holding 5:30/mile pace, and that's all I cared about. I knew at this point from crowd response (or lack thereof) that victory was pretty much a done deal, but I really wanted to make sure to finish the race as hard as could, and potentially PR over my old St. George time. The Parkway segment finally ended with less than a mile to go, the course finished on the road into downtown Ogden. It's pretty much dead flat, but the building were casting good shadows, which helped keep things cool. I knew that the race ended on 25th Street, and started counting blocks. 20th Street: 1000m. 21st Street: half mile. 22nd Street: 600m. 23rd Street: 400m. At this point, the crowd was completely lining the street, and was very loud in cheering me on. That was the final bout of adrenaline I needed, and kicked it in hard, finishing the the final 400m with a good sprint, and relishing the moment. I realize that winning a race like this is nothing to take to for granted, and this particular finish is something that I will remember for a long time. What a rush! There was an issue with the timing due to the "false start", but I'm pretty sure my final time was 2:26:24-ish, which is a good 10-second PR from St. George in 2005. I thought after the Striders Half Marathon that I might have 2:25 or 2:24 in meon the Ogden Marathon course, and I think I do, but just not with the heat and with running solo. So as far as I'm concerned, I met my time goal, got a non-St George PR, and also met another goal of breaking the course record (2:29-something). My my primary goal was simply winning the race, and to be honest, I didn't even think about my PR until the last couple miles. So with all goals met and with the thrill of victory, I'm ecstatic with today, and am so thankful just to get to run a marathon again. A year ago, I could barely hobble, and I wasn't even sure if running competitively ever again would be an option. This marathon was a sweet way to cap off the road to recovery and finish out my first full training cycle back. I look forward to building on this and gradually adding more mileage and more training cycles. I'm not sure which fall marathon I'll do to try to get my Trials Qualifier, but for now I'm going to take a few days completely off, reverse taper, and then start a 5K-10K mesocycle to see if I can get some speed back. Then start a marathon mesocycle in late July to add more endurance to that speed. Steve Ashbaker outleaned Joe Wilson for 2nd (and his first sub-2:30
performance!!). Neal Gasmann was 4th with somewhere under 2:32. I
forget who was 5th, but Sasha was 6th (I think) with 2:32:00. So a very
solid field. Other bloggers ran very very well with some long-awaited
performances and PR's, but I won't steal their thunder! (Burn: 176 miles)
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