Second Wind

Well it took me long enough to post our race report but here goes.

The family and I traveled on Wednesday night from Vegas to St. George where we stayed with my parents and I slept like a baby and had a nice run with my father the next morning. Then we traveled up to Logan to spend the next night with Meg's mom and again I slept like a baby (more on this later).

Friday we took the kids out to "first dam," those of you from Cache Valley know what I am talking about, and went canoeing and had a picnic. I tried to be careful at the lake to stay in the shade and relaxed, I must have spent a total of one hour in the sun and my bald old head got a little burned, oh well. After putting a fresh scratch on the roof of the "less than 3 months old truck" with the canoe....doh!!!!! we left the kids at grandma's and headed to Ogden.

I thought I was getting away from the heat by going north but by the time we got to the Expo around 4:30 it was scortching hot and all I wanted to do was get my stuff and get back to the air conditioned truck. We then headed to Layton to eat at the Olive Garden with some old friends.  After the Olive Garden we got back to the hotel and went to bed around 8:30 and I slept like a baby until 1:00 in the morning and couldn't go back to sleep, it's a good thing I slept so good the two previous nights because I was so restless for the next 3 hours until we got up and got going.

We met up with some friends I was planning to run with and boarded the busses. On the trip up the canyon the wind was howling and I was thinking this could be a long day in the wind, when we reached the lake it looked almost glassy so I figured the wind wouldn't be an issue, and it really wasn't. When we arrived at the starting line I visited the POPs twice, met Sasha, Cal and AndyB...finally, and then did some light stretching and got ready to go.

We started about 15-20 seconds from the starting line and we were off to a pretty good pace right at the gun, here are the splits:

1 7:32 Arch is a little tight but everything else is feeling good.
2 7:26
3 7:23
4 7:21
5 7:19 Arch is warmed-up and doing fine and we are on a roll.
6 7:27
7 7:23
8 7:28 I am starting to feel the effect of two crudy injury laden months of training leading up the marathon.
9 7:32
10 7:29 I have made it two miles further than planned with my pacers.
11 7:43 Bye guys, it was really really good running with you at least this far.
12 8:05 It
13 8:29 really
14 8:18 stinks
15 8:55 to
16 8:28 run
17 8:38 alone
18 8:44 for
19 8:32 this
20 8:56 many
21 9:18 miles
22 8:50 hey there's one of my pacing buddies only he's hurting worse than me and is working out some cramps.
23 8:39 Still alone but surprised to still be running at this point considering the crudy training mentioned above.
24 8:59
25 9:33 Don't know what the heck happened here, major mental lapse.
26 8:48 Almost there
0.4 3:30 Thanks to the young lady who kept me upright at the finish

Final time was 3:37:17 and it was a PR by over two minutes from last years SGM. My only real goals in this race were to: 1) run with my pacers for at least the first 8 miles....done. 2) not get injured even worse.....done. 3) Finish in under 4 hours.....done....with a modest PR to boot.

I was totally amazed and impressed by everything about this course. Every volunteer I came in contact with was helpful and friendly. The volunteers at the aid stations were awesome. I was calling out for vaseline at one aid station and a volunteer put down her gummie bears and mad a mad dash to her supply bag for a packet, had to protect the nips in my white shirt......ewwww gross! I loved the locals doing the wave as I ran by. I loved running through the relay points because the crowds were extra large and lifted your spirits. I loved the scenic nature of the course with it's snow capped mountains, jagged cliffs, rushing river, beautiful waterfall, lush green covered hills, pristine lake, etc., etc. Ogden is a race that I plan to do again and again. I would have to say that I enjoyed it better than St. George. I guess since I grew up in St. George I take for granted the beauty of that course, and since I currently live in the desert, a change of scenery is always very nice.

I am happy to report that Meg is doing really well with her knee. She wasn't sure how things would go for her at the marathon but she was prepared to ride the sag wagon if necessary to prevent further injury. She tried to flag down a bus at mile 18 only to be denied. At that point she said "to heck with that, I am finishing."  She went on to walk/run the last 8 miles and finish with a time of 4:45 and one very sore knee. We have been for a walk each day since the race and this morning she appears to be walking normal with no real complaints of pain. She is so much tougher than I am, I wish I could borrow an ounce of her mental toughness to get me through my next marathon, that would be more than enough. She is also happy to report that she still owns the family PR for the marathon at around 3:34 so I still have my work cut out for me at St. George this year....yikes.