The course was beautiful, the weather was beautiful, my performance was...so so.
The day started with getting up at 2:00am (after 4 hours of sleep), leaving at 3:00am, driving to Ogden from Orem with Wayne, and loading onto a bus between 4:45 and 5:00am. Everything went smoothly until we got on the bus. We thought it was leaving, but it only pulled a block up the street then parked on the side of the street with a couple of other buses. Other buses were passing us and apparently going on up to the start, but we just sat there for what seemed like a long time. We eventually left, but our bus (and a couple in front of it) took a wrong turn heading up the canyon and had to turn around when they hit a locked gate. We finally got to the start, and after some delay getting off the bus (which we were relieved to do), we finally hit the porta johns and hung out around the fires. Personally, I think this race could easily start at 6:30am or 6:45am instead of 7:00am. It's plenty light. The sun was actually all the way up over the horizon before the race started.
Wayne and I stuck pretty close to our plan to average 8:00/mi for the first 10 miles. Our mile splits were: 7:43, 7:51, 7:47, 7:48, 7:48, 7:46, 7:51, 7:56, 7:58, 7:54 = 1:18:22 (7:50/mi). We exceeded our goal a little, but I never felt like we were pressing the pace. We ran with a 14 year old young man named Abe for some of these miles. He seemed like a great young man. I kidded him that I had a cute 13 year old daughter that maybe he could date when they were both old enough. Abe eventually pulled on ahead of us.
The next 4 miles (11-14) north and west around the top end of the lake. These were gradual uphill miles and, although I felt we kept our effort the same, our pace slowed. Splits: 8:14, 8:14, 8:22, 8:17. We ran most of these miles with a runner named Matt. We stopped for water once when he didn't and he got a bit ahead of us, then slowly pulled away.
Mile 15 includes a half mile climb. Split: 8:50. I began to feel some pain on the top of my left foot at this point. It gradually got worse and I ended up with a pretty raw sore there by the end of the race.
Miles 16 & 17 (and half of 18) are slight downhill miles over to the mouth of Ogden Canyon. Splits: 8:27, 8:27. Our pace was consistent, but a little slower as we were beginning to tire.
I welcomed the downhill of Ogden Canyon (miles 18 to 22) and tried to let off the brakes and pick up the pace. Wayne didn't come with me. I managed to pick up the pace for a couple of miles or so (I passed Matt here), but then I began to run out of gas and wished I had Wayne's company again. Splits: 7:50, 7:38, 7:59, 8:35, 8:38. At this point I realized the next 4.2 miles weren't going to come easy.
Miles 23 to 25 followed the Ogden River Parkway. I was just hanging on. Splits: 8:25, 8:37, 9:30. Yep, the wheels were officially off at this point. The interesting thing was how few people were passing me, mostly young female runners two to three decades younger than me.
The last mile or so runs down Grant Avenue to 25th Street and the finish. I managed to pick up the pace to 9:12/mi for mile 26, and it was odd to me that it was enough to keep hardly anyone from passing me, although the people I was running near had all averaged 8:10 to 8:15/mi for the rest of the course. It seems this course somehow seems to beat people into submission by the end of the race. It may have been during this mile I passed Abe.
I did manage to put together a bit of a kick and average 7:35/mi for the 0.2 miles (0.3 on my watch). There was a group of runners in front of me and I simply willed myself to be in front of them. I could have passed a few more young women just before the finish, but I did that once and felt terrible later, so I was a gentleman and let them finish ahead of me rather than run my guts out to pass them.
My final time was 3:36 (unofficial), 8:12/mi. I was hoping for 3:30 or better, and it's my slowest marathon in the past few years, but it just wasn't in me today. I'm good with that.
I'll end as I began, the course was beautiful, the weather was beautiful, my performance was...so so...but I finished. As the announcer at the finish said, every runner that ran the marathon, half marathon, or 5K today got out there and lived life today. I wholeheartedly agree. Official stats: 3:36:38 (8:16/mi), AD 21 of 116 (18%), Overall 272 of 1682 (16%)
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