This was the big day! I ran the Provo City Marathon with 10 young men ages 14-18 and 4 other adults. (Three of the youth opted for the half marathon, but I'm still very pleased.) My son Ben won first place in his age division (12-14) and he was the only runner. His time was 4:18:30, just behind me. My other son, Alma said his goal was to finish in under six hours. So I was very pleased when I saw him come across at 4:45. I think he won the award for the best shirt, which said "running sucks" He got all kinds of comments during the run about his shirt. Another of our young men won 3rd place in the 15-18 age group with a time of 3:55. He had the best time in the group. Three of the adults finished ahead of me at 4:12, 4:13, and 4:14. The other adult is in my age group and he finished his first marathon in 5:44. He had more injury trouble than any of us, but he also had great determination and was able to pull in out in the end. I'm so happy for him. The rest of the boys finished between me and him.
In my age division (55-59), I also won a medal for third place out of seven runners. My time of 4:17:00 was just six seconds slower than my personal record of 4:16:54 at the Top of Utah marathon 3 years ago. During the last 45 minutes of the run, I knew I was close, but not that close. When I got to mile 19, I thought that I would be hitting the wall any time now. I think my pace slowed down a lot before mile 19, but I had a reasonable amount of energy all the way to the end. I forgot to bring my GPS watch, but I stayed pretty near the 4 hour pacers until almost the half way point. The 4:15 pacers finally passed me up at mile 24, but I didn't have the energy to stay with them. The weather couldn't have been much better. It was a little too cold at the start and a little too hot at the end, but tolerable for short sleeves throughout. I have to say this was the best marathon out of the three I've run because I didn't have everyone passing me at the end. Without the injury in the midst of the training cycle, it could have been much better. The other good news is that my injury never slowed me down during the run.
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