Every Race is an Adventure!

I ran the water tank hills with Larry, Wayne and Kent. It was 4 days after the Squaw Peak 50 and 4 days before the Utah Valley Marathon. My goal was to see how my legs felt to help me decide whether to run the marathon.

As I jogged up to the meeting corner, I had some pain in my right heel, my left knee hurt a little, and my feet still felt a little beat up, but I felt up for the run.

The PF-related heel pain felt better as I warmed up. I've been used to this since the PF flared up back in January. It feels a little different after hyper-extending it 3 times during the 50, but I'm not too concerned about it.

The feet felt a little tired during the run, but nothing to worry about. With a few days more rest they should be fine.

The left knee only really bothered me on the steep downhills where I had to watch my footing.

When I hit the level section between hills 2 and 1 on the way back down I picked up the pace to catch up to Wayne and Kent. I was moving along at a fast pace and my legs felt great. It felt good to open up and run fast. I passed them just as we began the descent down the steep first hill and the knee didn't bother me when I didn't have to brake to watch my step.

I'll decide on Friday whether to run the marathon, but it looks like a go. With the "no rocks, snow or mud", secure footing, and a mostly gradual downhill course, I think I'll be fine if I don't push the pace. I took it easy last year and ran 3:50. This year's course should be faster. That's only about 1/4 as long as I ran last week.

Well, this is embarrassing...or at least enlightening. I was wondering what it would feel like for a 50 year old man to run the Utah Valley Marathon the week after running the Squaw Peak 50 Trail Run as his first ultra-marathon. Not too surprisingly, the answer is...not very good.

I finished in the very slow time of 4:28:59. It started out okay, but that okay feeling only lasted about 6 miles. I guess that's about how much I had recovered from the 50 miler, because familiar feelings returned...sore heel, sore hip, sore left knee, tired feet. As the steady rain began, my pace slowed. My splits were:

8:02, 7:27, 7:45, 8:24, 8:49, 8:57, 10:37, 10:30, 9:30, 9:49, 10:38, 9:49, 9:35, 9:34, 11:43, 12:25, 12:20, 11:07, 11:01, 10:29, 11:16, 10:57, 10:37, 10:21, 8:14/mi at the end.

The good news is I finished, but I couldn't have without help from my son Andrew and from Larry. I called Andrew and asked him to bring me a knee brace so I didn't over do it on my left knee. He met me at Bridal Veil Falls Park with two different braces. I crossed the highway and ended up putting one on each knee. They started to help almost immediately and I didn't worry about my knees for the remainder of the marathon. As I approached the mouth of Provo Canyon I met Larry on his bike. He road the last 7 or 8 miles in with me. His conversation kept me going. Those miles were hard. What am I saying, all the miles were hard, except maybe the first six.

So my experiment this year is to see if a 50 year old man...specifically this 50 year old man...can run the Squaw Peak 50, the Utah Valley Marathon, and the Ragnar Relay on consecutive weekends and survive. Two down, one to go. After a very cold bath I actually feel much better. I'm optimistic.