A couple days ago Kelli mentioned on her blog that she was going to run the Sogonapmit Marathon. I hadn't heard about it until then. It was the Timpanogos Half Marathon run in both directions (hence the name which is Timpanogos backwards). You start at American Fork High School and run to AF Canyon, run up to Tibble Fork Reservoir, turn around at the starting line, and run back down. The elevation gain on the first half is about 1800, I believe. I was excited to run this race because I don't like all my races to be downhill ones (as are so common in Utah). 24 people ran the full marathon. We started at 3:20 am. The goal was to get to the starting line and turn around before the 1300 half marathoners started and then outrun them to the finish. Several of us did that, but then we found out the half started a little late, so we were a little less excited about beating them. It was a fun atmosphere. It was nice to chat with Kelli and Julie on the way up. Much easier than the parts when I was running up the steeper parts of the canyon by myself in the dark. I felt quite relaxed, surprisingly the whole way up. The downhill was good too. I tried to just stay relaxed and feared that at some point I would crash and burn. That never happened. I had some moments when I struggled to keep my pace, but most of the downhill miles were 7:30 pace or faster, even at the end. (My Garmin wasn't super accurate in the canyon.) The winner was Seth Wold, a very fast marathoner. He took it easy, stopping at aid stations for awhile to chat, stopping at the halfway point for maybe 10 minutes to chat with a friend, and running for awhile with some of us. Cool guy. Once we got out of the canyon, Kelli and I ran together. This was very helpful. We were wanting to run about the same pace, so we pushed each other to stay on pace. If she didn't have to stop for two bathroom breaks, she probably would have beat me. In the end, I got second place. It was fun to place that high, even though the race was small. I'm satisfied (but not thrilled) with that time on a fairly challenging course. I ran about 1:55 up and 1:36 down. Most of all it was fun to run on a gorgeous course and enjoy the company of other runners. Much better than trying to do a long run by myself. One thing I did differently from other marathons was to stop at almost every aid station. My goal was to keep my blood sugar high and stay hydrated enough. I think it made a big difference for me because I didn't crash at the end. So it was good to experiment with this before St. George. I had a good mileage week. Passed 60 miles, which was good to make up for last week and my highest mileage week in over a year.
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