Happy Pioneer Day! Following a few hours of sleep, my day started at 2:00 am. You have to love the Deseret News Marathon’s early start time! After changing into my racing gear; doing some light exercises (i.e., stretches, sit-ups, and push-ups), and confirming that I had everything I needed, I headed up to the University of Utah to catch the bus up to the starting line at Big Mountain. Once at the starting line, my stomach was feeling a little upset; therefore, I got off my feet and took a nice hour-long nap under the starry sky. A half-hour before the race, I began to make my final preparations. Overlooking the lights of the city, I went through some pre-race stretches before dropping off my gear bag and heading to the starting line.
At exactly 5:30 am the race started to the traditional bagpipe music. Strangely, I look forward to hearing the early morning bagpipe tunes every 24th of July; that is, it singles a time to withdraw all the training miles I deposited in the bank and have some fun!
For nearly the first four miles, I stayed with the lead pack (my miles splits were 5:21, 5:29, 5:29, and 5:50). These opening miles are straight downhill; therefore, I think we were all relaxing and saving ourselves for the later/tougher parts of the course. Knowing that I’m no way an elite runner, I knew it was just a matter of time until I was going to slowdown to my goal pace of 6:29 minutes per mile.
Once we hit the two-mile climb up the Little Mountain section of the course (around mile 5.5), the elite runners were pulling away (it’s amazing to watch these guys run; that is, they really make running a marathon look so easy). Having run the D-News Marathon three times and the Salt Lake 10 Miler once, Little Mountain and I are old friends that unfortunately have not always gotten along. For this two-mile ascent, I averaged 7:13 minutes per mile. I was daydreaming about running sub-sevens over this part of the course. However, running dreams that do not materialize offer great training motivation.
The remaining descent of Emigration Canyon went smoothly to Hogle Zoo. This is where the course veers off on to Crestview Drive, then to Wasatch Drive, and over to Foothill Boulevard. This is the segment of the course that has been most difficult for me in years past; therefore, the part of the course that I have trained on the most. In short, this section is still very challenging to say the least. Wow, I was not so much trying to run, but more like trying to gut out mile 21, which encompassed a steady climb up Foothill to Sunnyside Avenue. I’m really just thankful for the 7:09 on this mile.
Knowing that a sub-2:50 marathon was within my grasp, for the last part of the race I just focused on the fundamentals--breathing, remaining relaxed, picking-up my long legs, and drinking plenty of water. In addition, there was a runner from Heber that was keeping a good fifth-of-a-mile in front of me for a good portion of the race, which really helped me keep up my pace; that is, without him I would just be racing my Garmin. The runner in fourth place had some distance between us two; therefore, I sort of felt bad for this runner from Heber in that he had no one to push him along. I absolutely wanted to catch up to him so that we could push each other, but he was just too fast.
It felt absolutely awesome to finish in Liberty Park and the cheering crowd was beyond supportive! I crossed the line with a time of 2:47:35 (i.e., a 6:23 minutes-per-mile pace), which happens to be a personal record. For anyone that is wondering, the two Yasso 800 workouts that I did leading up to the race projected finish times of 2:48 and 2:45; therefore, this workout is pretty accurate in predicting marathon finishing times.
My post-race recovery simply consisted of water, a few popsicles, bags of ice, a shady tree to lie under, and the excitement involved with watching the other runners come in along with the Days of 47 Parade festivities. You have to love the 24th! Participating in our state’s holiday always makes me proud to be a Utahan and I look forward to doing it again next year.
