Marathon Manifesto

Here is a letter I wrote in April or May of 2013.

MARATHON MANIFESTO

Hi everyone this is Chris.  They say that announcing your goals publicly helps you accomplish your goals.  I think because of the inherent peer pressure, basically.  Normally I don’t do this because I think that I can accomplish my goals without peer pressure and because when I announce my goals publicly and fail, then that is embarrassing.  I once before announced a similar goal to the family and failed.  However, I have thought long and hard about this and I want to announce a goal that I have.  I want to run in the 2014 Boston Marathon.  I am going to need all of the self-discipline and fear of public humiliation that I can get in order to motivate me to get out the door six times a week and to run hard on three of those days (the other three days are easy days and getting out the door is the only issue).

Running a Marathon has always been on my “to do” list, or bucket list, for you young hipsters.  Growing up for a number of years in the Holliday area of Salt Lake, every Pioneer day I heard about the Deseret News Marathon.  It was the only marathon on the Wasatch front that I was aware of.  One year my classmate, named Art, at Oakwood Elementary school actually ran the Deseret News Marathon.  It seemed like every year this guy named Demetrio Cabanillas won.  It turns out that later he was one of my nephew’s teachers in Jr. High or something in West Jordan.  My brother, ran the Deseret News Marathon in the late 1990’s.  That made the marathon that more achievable, because you know, if he did it, I can do it, right? 

Fast forward to 2004.  My sister-in-law ran the St. George marathon.  I ran with her on the course for about four or five miles.  She finished the marathon which is commendable in and of itself.  She also finished four minutes off a Boston Marathon qualifying time (BQ).  I was impressed that in her first marathon she wasn’t running just to finish, but for the BQ.  That brought me one step closer to running a marathon, because you know, if she can do it so can I.  So in 2005 my sister-in-law, brother-in-law, and I all signed up to run the St. George marathon together.  We did not get accepted in the lottery.  We put our names in the hat again in 2006 and we got accepted.  We started off the training cycle for the October 2006 St. George marathon by running a 5k together in Safford, Arizona in May of 2006.  Both of them declared at the outset of training that they were going to try and BQ at St. George.  My goal was just to finish a marathon to cross it off my list and be done with it.  A secondary and less important goal was to finish at a ten minute pace which would be around four hours and twenty two minutes.  I really didn’t think that I would run another Marathon after that.  After finishing the 2006 St. George Marathon each of us achieved what we were shooting for.  I had finished and I exceeded my pace by running four hours and ten minutes which is around a nine minute and thirty three second pace per mile.  I was very impressed with my wife’s siblings because they each were able to BQ.  In fact, they had shone a light on a pathway that heretofore had been dark to me.  I had never known anyone personally to have qualified for the Boston Marathon.  I did not know that mere mortals could have the audacity to aspire to amateur athletic greatness.  So here I was standing around at the finish line just having accomplished a life-time goal and thinking “man, this is only the beginning, there is another higher mountain to climb.”  This then opened up a whole new world for me as a runner. 

On April 21, 2008 those same two family members ran the Boston Marathon together.  In so doing they walked down that now lighted path.  I looked down that path from afar and deemed it desirable despite the pain and time involved.  The weekend before the Boston I sent them this poem entitled “The Few” by Edgar A. Guest that has since become my running mantra:

"The easy roads are crowded
And the level roads are jammed;
The pleasant little rivers
With the drifting folks are crammed.

But off yonder where it's rocky,
Where you get a better view,
You will find the ranks are thinning
And the travelers are few.

Where the going's smooth and pleasant
You will always find the throng,
For the many, more's the pity,
Seem to like to drift along.

But the steeps that call for courage,
And the task that's hard to do
In the end result in glory
For the never-wavering few."

 

That day, April 21, 2008, I committed to myself that I would run in the Boston Marathon.  I drew up plans and came up with a training program.  A couple of years and several starts and stops later I was in the process of accomplishing my goal by training for the St. George Marathon in the summer of 2010.  I had signed up with two very close friends from High School.  We would text each other on a weekly basis to see how our training was going.  My goal was to be at a seven minute mile pace.  About halfway through the 16 week training schedule I had to come to grips with the fact that a seven minute pace was out of reach.  I had signed up and paid the money and dropping out was not an option.  So, I re-adjusted my goal to run between eight and a half minute to a nine minute pace.  I was able to finish in three hours forty minutes and thirty six seconds which is eight minute and twenty six second pace.  I was happy with a thirty minute improvement but not satisfied.  My goal was still to run a BQ, which was and is 3:10 for me.  I felt like given a year’s time I would be able to BQ at St. George 2011.  To this end I was happy about my time at the Pima Turkey trot on Thanksgiving Day 2010.  My sister and brother-in-law were with our family and ran it as well.  However, in 2011 a much more important and memorable event occurred in my life that I wanted to focus on.  My wife was doing her own marathon of sorts with much bigger significance.  It was my turn to support her through her nine month marathon.  She gave birth to a boy, the Friday before General Conference and the St. George Marathon.  What she has done three times over is much more difficult physically, mentally, emotionally, in every way than any race I have done or will ever do so I give credit to her for what she has sacrificed for our family. 

Now, pause the story for a minute for some Boston Marathon history.  In the fall of 2010 something unique happened to those trying to register for the 2011 Boston.  For many, many years the Boston would not reach its limit of registered entrants until February or March for the April race.  However, sometime in the late 2000’s it started to fill up faster each year.  For a couple of years it would fill up in half the time that it did the previous year.  Finally in the late summer of 2010 thanks to social media, there was a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Runners blogs and facebook pages started to quote someone else, advising others to register early because the Boston was going to fill up fast.  No sooner had registration day opened than the feeding frenzy of registration began.  People woke up at four in the morning.  Others took the day off from work.  It was wild.  The server went down, people’s registration process would lock up on them in the middle of the process and they didn’t know if they should wait it out and continue or start anew.  Sure enough on the first day of registration, it reached maximum capacity in a record eight hours.  After several months of hunkering down and closed door meetings the Boston Athletic Association, who runs the show, came out with a modified registration process for 2012 and a permanent change for 2013 and beyond.  They lowered everyone’s qualifying time by five minutes and gave preference to faster runners.  If you run twenty minutes faster than your qualifying time you can register on day one and two.  Ten minutes faster and you get a crack at it on day three and four, and five minutes faster and you squeak in on day five and six.  Starting the second week if there are still slots available anyone who has run a minimum BQ can register.  This meritocracy seems to have restored order to the marathon world, at least for the time being.  Media outlets reported that the registration for 2012 went smoothly and in 2013 the registration was still open into the third week.  While this historical context may seem trivial to some, it plays an important role in my story, hence the background. 

Back to the story.  In 2012, I wanted to run the Utah Valley Marathon in June.  When it came time to sign up though, I did not feel like I was in good enough physical condition to BQ.  In April when it was time to register in the lottery for the St. George, I again felt like even with four or five months of training I would not be able to BQ.  I signed up for a sprint triathlon the last Saturday in August 2012 which kept me in shape.  Then in October I did another 5K that kept me training.  Then through the winter I was training consistently because I had signed up to run the Ragnar Relay with the some great friends in Phoenix the end of February of 2013.  That was a blast.  Someday I would like to do that again with my family or my wife’s family.

 

 

 

                On April 15, 2013 I got on runnersworld.com and followed the live updates of how the Boston Marathon was going for the elite runners.  Yet, another Boston Marathon that I was not privileged to run, how sad.  Another year that Americans came oh so close to winning.  Later in the day my brother called me and told me that there had been some bombings at the Boston Marathon.  I knew that the marathon world would be changed forever, and the Boston would never be the same either.  There was a certain innocence lost to future marathon events and in particular Boston.  Also, after a minute or two of digesting what was going on, I had this sudden urge well up inside of me to run in the 2014 Boston Marathon.  It wasn’t a “it would be cool to do that” feeling.  It was much stronger.  I spent much of April 15 grieving for the loss of life and injuries.  It is almost like I took it personally.  Every time I would read a news report about Boston the feeling kept coming back, “I have to run Boston next year.”  I knew that there were a lot of people out there having similar feelings.  Jeff Benedict, an occasional columnist for the Deseret News felt the same way, albeit not the running part.  I read a post of his in the Deseret News that I really related to.   

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865578618/Terrorists-messed-with-wrong-people-in-Boston.html

I felt like getting into Boston just got that much harder.  My suspicions were confirmed when runnersworld.com reported an off the charts spike in google searches for “qualify for boston marathon” soon after the bombing tragedy.

That brings me to the present day.  The first day for registration for Boston 2014 is on a yet to be determined day in September.  For me that rules out any Marathon after Sept. 1 including St. George.  Consequently, I narrowed my options for a Boston qualifying marathon to a handful.  I have selected the 14^th annual Portneuf Medical Center Pocatello (Idaho) Marathon August 31.   

http://www.pocatellomarathon.com/

The altitude is a little high, I would prefer sea level.  The initial downhill is pretty steep and has the potential to tear up the quads.  On the plus side there are no major sustained up-hills and it shouldn’t get too hot.  Hopefully the Idaho wind will take a break on that day.  Finally, and most importantly I gives me the ability to do a full 18 week training cycle to build up to that seven minute mile pace.  Technically a 7:15 mile pace will get me a 3:10 marathon, but I need some room for error so I am shooting for the ever elusive seven minute mile pace.  This is my goal and I am committed.  If I fail it will not be for lack of trying.  Anyone want to do it with me?  There is still time to do a 16 or 18 week training program.  This is my third time using a program from halhigdon.com . 

Sincerely,

Chris

2012 Tri-community Triathlon Race Report

Here is my report of the 2012 Tri-community Triathlon in the Gila Valley.  This was from an email I sent out to my family.

I just listened to a podcast, or "program" for us older folks, on the mormonchannel about storytelling.

http://mormonchannel.org/everything-creative-discussion/57

It reminded me that I need to tell the story of the Triathlon that I did on August 25. Here is the link to the men overall results

http://www.ceptiming.com/2012/misc400/12TriCTri-AllM.txt

Here is the link the men age group results

http://www.ceptiming.com/2012/misc400/12TriCTri-AgeM.txt

In this race as in last years, one of the competitors was Lacey Nymeyer John.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lacey_Nymeyer

She is L.D.S., swam for the University of Arizona, won NCAA individual and team championships, was NCAA 2009 woman of the year, and was Olympic silver medalist in a relay in 2008 Beijing Olympic Summer Games. She married a man from the Gila Valley, who was also in the race. I remember her from last year and was interested to see if she would be in the race this year. I saw them in the line to start the swim. So that was kind of in the back of my head the whole time. It is not every day you get to measure yourself in competition against an Olympian, much less an Olympic medalist.

Swim

625 yards. 12 minutes 31 seconds 28 place among men. I knew I would be slower on the swim than the previous year because I simply did not swim as much as I should have. I spent about 45 minutes just waiting in line because they only have 12 lanes. If each person does the swim in 10-15 minutes, well, you do the math. I did stop once to clear the fog off my goggles but it was really to take a couple of extra breaths, about ten seconds worth. They took six normal width lanes and devided them in half to make twelve to I kept hitting my right arm on the line lane, going both directions. That tells me that I have a tendancy to drift right when I swim. Maybe it is because I breath on my right side. The pool is only 25 yards and so you do a lot of turning. I don't do the flip turn so I am sure I wasted time at each turn compared to someone doing flip turns. Coming out of the swim my arms were pretty tired and I was breathing pretty hard. I hoped that I could get my breathing back to normal on the bike.

Bike

15 miles. 57 minutes 23 seconds 28 place among men. First I have to thank my Willcox Dad and Stake President for letting me use his bike. He was going to do this triathlon as well but in relay format. His bike and run teammates didn't come through though. My primary goal on the bike was to finish without a flat tire which happened last year. I was able to do that so it was a moral victory. Barring a flat tire, my goal was to stay in the "aero" position as much as possible and finish the bike with some energy for the run still remaining. The "aero" position is basically putting your hands and arms forward on two bars that stick out forward from the handle bars thus getting your upper body in a more inclined flat angle to be more aerodynamic. I feel like I did fairly good at that. I was able to save some energy for the run. Only one person passed my on the bike. By the speed that he passed me I knew that I would not be able to keep up with him. He passed me about mile marker five or so, right in the same area that I had the flat last year. As that person passed me I saw another guy up in front about 400 yards that I set my goal to pass him. It took my what seemed like forever to pass him. In reality is it was about five to seven miles, but I finally did it. I had two bottles on the bike, one with gatorade and one with water. I was going to use the water to spray on me to keep me cool and the gatorade to re-fuel. I did good about re-fueling but I really didn't use the water until the last five miles. At that point I realized I was carrying this extra weight for nothing so I started spraying it on my helmet, back and chest profusely. Anybody at the bike run transistion must have thought I was working really hard!

Run

5K or 3.1 miles. 22 minutes 18 seconds. 5th among men. Going into the run, my attitude was that this was my specialty, nobody passes me, and I need to really push the pace. The first half mile is always really hard because your leg muscles just feel really, really weird. Long steps are quite difficult so you end up taking little mini-steps quickly. On this course the first half mile is slightly uphill and so any enthusiasm you have about really taking it out fast is totally destroyed and reality sets in that you have been exercising at a high rate for over and hour and your body just wants to stop. In fact during the whole run your body is telling you to to stop and you have to use all the self discipline that you have to not stop. If you an amateur athlete like me you will come to a compromise with your body and you will slow your pace at least and pick it up later. That is kind of the narrative going on in my mind the first two miles. Keep an ok pace, and we will pick it up later. Then the last mile or so as I pick up the pace the mental talk changes to "how long can I keep up this pace and how much do I have left." Coming out of the transition area in the first hunderd yards of the run, I saw Lacey Nymerer John coming in on the bike. I have to admit, one of the big motivations I used to keep my pace up on the run was not to get passed by Lacey. I know it may sound silly but anything I could use for motivation was needed. I knew that she ran the 5k last year in 23 minutes so I had my work cut out for me. At mile marker 2 or so you go up a steep hill the the Safford cemetery. I looked behind me at the bottom of the hill and didn't see her so I was supper happy about that. As I went up the hill and as I passed people going around the cemetery I made the requisite jokes about being in there with them if I had to do any more of this. At the top of the hill you can see the course behind you because of a turnaround and sure enough there she was behind me. So I had to really start kicking it into gear. I felt much better on the run this year than last year when I was totally and completely anihalated (sp?). This year it was super hard and challenging but I had the ganas this time.

Post Race

My support team/fan club were there to greet me at the finish line which meant a lot to me. An award should be given to Team Leader of the support crew for getting everyone ready and motivated and in place. It was hot because it was August in Arizona. I was able to talk with Lacey and her husband Chandler and that was fun for me. They are both really friendly, nice, and humble. We went to eat at our favorite Chinese restaurant in the Gila Valley, Magic Wok or something like that on Highway 70. There I met and talked briefly with Lacey's grandparents. They said the volunteer counting laps for Lacey miscounted and made her go down and back an extra time. We laughed at that because Lacey could probably count laps in her sleep and the poor volunteer was probably people watching and not paying attention to what was going on. After that we wanted to go swimming at the Safford pool because they have two fun slides. It was not open, nor was the Thatcher or Pima pool. We ended up going to the Willcox pool.

NBC Broadcast of 2014 Ironman Triathlon World Championshhip

Here is the link to the youtube video of the 2014 Gopro Hawaii Ironman Triathlon.  Since it is not mine, I make no guarantees as to the quality or the content of the video.  On my smart phone it was good quality on my laptop it was kind of blurry.  So good luck with that.  I usually get emotional the first time I watch these.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7LYnFSShB0

2011 Tri-Community Triathlon Race Report

TRI COMMUNITY TRIATHLON 2011
Swim
Distance: 625 yards. Time: 11:51. My swim time was 14th place out of 29 male swimmers. At the beginning of the swim, everyone formed a line for their turn for a lane. The first 12 triathletes had already started and the group from my town was in the second 12. As each person finished, the next person in line would go and take that lane and start their swim. Everyone had a timing chip with a Velcro (registered trademark) band on their ankle. Your time started when you crossed a rubber mat. The first person out of the pool was a female and everyone cheered for her. I asked the people around me if they knew who that was. They said that she was a former U of A female athlete of the year and an NCAA all-american or something like that. It was not until afterward that I put two and two together and realized it was Lacey Nymeyer John. She was on the 4x100 freestyle swim team that won the silver medal in the Beijing Olympic Summer Games. HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lacey_Nymeyer" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lacey_Nymeyer So that was pretty cool.
The swim went relatively smooth. I started out deliberately at medium effort in order to have better pacing throughout the whole swim. We were supposed to do 25 laps. I was counting my laps and when I got to ten the race staff girl counting my laps told me I was half way, so I must have miscounted somewhere in there. I only stopped to adjust my goggles once. That was good because during training I stopped on every lap to adjust my goggles in order to get a chance to catch a breath. I was expecting to take about 15 minutes to do the swim so I was happy with my swim time. As I hopped out of the pool I was happy because I felt good after the swim. I wasn’t completely dead. I didn’t even have to do back stroke or the freestyle with my head above water to breathe, like I did in the 2009 mini triathlon that had a 225 yard swim.
Bike
Distance 15.5 miles. Time: 1:49:30. Last place male or female. Pregnant women finished in front of me. A few days before the race I noticed that the back tire on the bike was a little low on air. So the morning of the race I used a pump that my friends had in the back of their truck to pump up my tire. The valve stems on these high-end road bikes are a different kind than I have dealt with before. You have to untwist the top portion of it to allow the air to go in and then you tighten back down. When I got on the bike after the swim, the tire was flat. I circled back to my friends truck and pumped it up and was on my way. I didn’t think much about it at the moment. However, after getting into the rhythm I started to think about it and how it would ruin my day if my tire went flat so I was hopping that it would hold. In about two miles the tire was going flat again and I did not have a pump. There was nothing I could do except stand there and watch valuable seconds tic away and turn into valuable minutes. The next racer to come along did not have a pump. I waited for a friend to come along who I knew had a pump. As she came by she gave me her pump and went on. I thought that maybe I hadn’t tightened the valve stem down tight enough the last time I filled it up with air so I tried to tighten it down nice and tight this time. I thought that I could catch up to her and give her pump back to her. I pumped it up and sped off on my way only to have the tire go flat again, faster than the last time. Again I dismounted and tried to pump up the tire again. It held air for a few seconds and went flat. So I tried again, and again and again. All the time listening as riders went by once every couple of minutes on the bicycles. I kept trying to pump it up, what else could I do? All to no avail. It would just not hold air pressure. At this point a well meaning citizen came along and asked if he could help. He told me that he had a cell phone if I needed to make a call. I informed him that I didn’t even know my wife’s cell phone number. I knew by this point that my day was done. I considered having him take me to the finish line as there was no hope for the bike at this point. But, with absolutely no hope on which to lean, I told him that I would figure it out and he went on his way. I couldn’t run the rest of the way because I was on biking clip on shoes, and they weren’t mine anyway, and that would completely ruin them. I considered taking my clip on shoes off and running with the bike but I knew that my bare feet wouldn’t hold up to the wear and tear, nor to the heat of the pavement. So running or walking with the bike the remaining ten miles was not a viable option. So, I figured that eventually someone would realize that I was out on the course somewhere and they would come looking for me. If I was lucky, I could borrow a bike and finish the race. I started to think, and I couldn’t remember a race that I had started that I did not finish, so I didn’t want to have a “DNF” up on the internet next to my name on the results page. So somehow, someway, I was going to finish, even if it was after everyone else had left. Even if somone had to go and bring me my running shoes and I could jog the rest of the way, with bike in hand. At about that time a fellow in a truck with two kids in the back seat came along and asked if he could help. I told him the same thing. Then this gentleman in the truck told me that he lived about a mile down the road and that he might have an extra tube. Well it was worth a try. It was something within my circle of influence. So off he went. I took off the clip-on shoes and jogged barefoot with the bike about 100 meters down the road to some nice shade trees. I took the back tire off and still futilely tried to pump it up with air, even though I knew it wouldn’t do any good. The good Samaritan was back in a few minutes, and low and behold it was the right kind of tube. Just then one of the race staff pulled up in a truck with a bicycle in the bed. He enquired about the situation. He could see that I was trying to get the tire off with a little stick I had found on the ground and he asked me if I needed a spoon. I was not sure if he was referring to a common table spoon or a specialized piece of equipment, but whatever it was a spoon sounded better than a stick. He brought back a specialized piece of equipment. It looked like a flat wrench with a hook on one end. It helped get the tire off. It was here that we saw that the hole in the tube was caused by the valve stem being pulled away and off of the tube. So in my inexperience of dealing with bicycle tubes the morning of the triathlon, before the swim, I had caused a tear in the tube by pulling on it to hard one way or the other when trying to pump it up. The race staff man then helped me put the tube in the tire and the tire back on the rim. He used his air pump that he had and pumped it up to 100 pounds per square inch. I thanked race staff man and the good Samaritan for their help. I sped off, grateful for nice firm tires. For the rest of the bike I let out my frustrations of the last hour by pedaling as fast and as hard as I could. While that relieved quite a bit of stress, it totally wasted my chances of having a respectable run time.
Run
Distance: 3.1 miles. Time: 28:54. 14th place out of 29, in the men’s division.
The first two hundred meters of the run I was still on adrenaline from the bike. I was trying to ingest some “gu” energy get stuff. So, that kept my mind distracted from the fact that I was completely out of energy. Not only did I hit the proverbial “wall” but I knew that I was already red-lining it as far as heat exhaustion was concerned. At this point it was over 90 degrees, and humid to boot, not a “dry heat”. So, at the two aid stations during the run, pouring cold water over my head felt fantastic for the twenty seconds that it lasted.
Being so far behind in the bike had broken my will power to push the pace on the run. I just wanted to finish. I wanted to push the pace a couple of times but as we ran past the cemetery I knew that if I did, I would be right there with them so I focused on keeping the meager pace that I had. I didn’t sprint at the finish, or even pick to the pace at all for that matter. I was happy just to finish. At the finish area, I drank a bottle of cold water, poured one over my head, layed down on a bed of ice, stood in front of an evaporative cooler and then did it all again. At least I wasn’t completely immobilized for two hours and I didn’t throw up multiple times like I did at the end of the St. George 2010 marathon. So that was a good thing. We won a football in the raffle afterward. That was a small consolation. I was able to collect my prize for winning the 2009 mini-triathlon. The race director had it sitting in a corner in her office this whole time, and she was happy to get rid of it.
My family was such a good sport throughout the whole thing. From waking up at 4:30 in the morning, to going to the second transition stage to set up my shoes, coming back to help me in the bike, to standing around for an hour or two afterward in the 95 degree heat, they were troopers. Race staff man told me that every year one person gets a flat tire. This year it was me. Next year I will be prepared for a flat, with a tube, an air pump and a spoon all on my bike. My first sprint triathlon, quite a memorable one indeed.

Big Show This Saturday

For anyone interested in some motivational/inspirational tv viewing this Saturday ( and no sadly I am not referring to BYU  football) the once annual ironman triathlon world championship show filmed and  produced by NBC will  be airing at 1:30 p.m. eastern standard time.

If you miss it or have other priorities don't worry I will be posting the link where you can watch the whole thing on youtube  while you are at work.

http://m.ironman.com/triathlon-news/articles/nbcpromo.aspx?/?utm_source=im.com&utm_medium=carousel&utm_campaign=nbc%20show

2010 St. George Marathon

ST. GEORGE MARATHON 2010 – MY VERSION

Mile, Mile Split, Overall Time

 

1        9.06

2        9.06     18.13

3        8.38     26.51

4        9.01     35.53

5        8.21     44.14

6        8.05     52.19

7        8.06     1:00.26

8        9.10     1:09.36

9        9.05     1:18.42

10    8.05     1:26.41

11    9.12     1:36.00

12    8.21     1:44.21

13    8.20     1:52.42

14    8.10     2:00.53

15    7.29     2:08.23

16    7.30     2:15.53

17    7.57     2:23.50

18    8.06     2:31.56

19    8.53     2:40.50

20    8.15     2:49.05

21    7.12     2:56.18

22    16.07   3:12.25

23    Combined with mile 22

24    8.53     3:21.18

25    8.50     3:30.08

26    8.20     3:38.29

26.2  2.06  3:40.35

 

 

Pre-Race

We arrived in St. George around 4 p.m. local time.  We checked into our hotel.  As it so happened, it was right across the street from where we stayed in 2006 when I did the St. George Marathon with my brother-in-law and sister-in-law.  After checking in, I went for a nice easy, slow 20 min. jog.  My two friends were going to run the marathon also.  Friend number one (FN1) and his family pulled into St. George about an hour and a half after us.  We met at the Chapel on Bluff street.  FN1 hopped in our car so we could drive the course.  It was exciting to drive the course, and I wasn’t as nervous this time as I was in 2006.  Just excited.  Here I was again after four years.  After we drove the course we dropped FN1 off at his hotel room, which, by happenstance was just across the street from our Hotel.  We then went to the St. George Expo center where I picked up my race packet.  We met FN1 and friend number 2 (FN2) for the spaghetti dinner.  We then went back to the hotel room to try and get to sleep early.  As I was laying in bed trying to get to sleep, I realized that I had forgotten to purchase my pre-race meal of a muffin, and banana.  Then for sure I couldn’t go to sleep because this was going to throw my whole pre-race routine off.  Then it occurred to me that I didn’t have to find a grocery store, a convenience store should do the trick.  So at 10:30 at night I hiked across bluff street to the west side and bought a muffin and a banana at the shell gas station.  I notice another guy there that looked like a runner buying last min. stuff so that made me feel just a little bit better.  Finally at 11 at night I went to sleep.  I woke up sometime before 3:30 in the a.m. and got ready and walked over to FN1’s hotel and waited for him in the parking lot.  He came out shortly thereafter and we were getting on the buses right at 4 a.m.  We wanted to get on the early bus because they were offering free prizes to people who went early.  Of course, neither of us got anything, but it was part of the experience.  FN2 got on a later bus and had to wait for an hour to get on a bus.  Once we were at the start line, we sat and waited for the next two hours.  It was nice to go to the bathroom without having to wait in line, because there were fewer people there.  I noticed that the morning was exceptionally warm.  This did not bode well for later in the day.  It was nice then, but in hindsight, I would rather have it cold in order to have it cooler at the finish line.  I had a sweater and sweats on but didn’t really even need them.  FN1 and I missed the national anthem because we were warming up.  There is a lot of energy at the starting.  The closer you get to the starting gun the more energy there is, it is a fun atmosphere.  At the last second, we were able to find FN2, so that was good.  We huddled up for one last pep-talk and bid each other good luck.

 

Race

My overall goal for the race was to finish somewhere between and 8.30 min per mile pace and a 9.00 min per mile pace.  Over the distance of 26.2 miles that translates roughly to 3 hours and 42 min to 3 hours and 55 minutes.  So, I felt like anything between 3 hours and 40 min. and 4 hours would be nice since my time in 2006 was 4 hours and 10 min.  I wasn’t quite sure that I would make the three forty mark because my training runs had been closer to the 4 hour time frame.  In fact I felt that it was only remotely possible to get three forty but kept my mind open to it on the principal of shoot for the stars and hit the tree top, shoot for the tree top and hit the trunk type thing.  The first three miles the strategy was to go nice and easy at a comfortable pace, treating it almost like a warm up jog (yes I know, there is something not right about a three mile warm up jog).  Conservative was the mantra for the first three miles.  The marathon had the cliff bar pace team.  These were runners who were guaranteed to finish at a certain time and they carried balloons with their pace on it so it can be easily spotted.  So I started probably twenty yards back from the 4 hour pace balloons.  I was kind of nervous the first mile because I didn’t exactly know my pace.  I made the comment aloud and someone who had a GPS watch said that we were close to a nine min. mile pace, so that is exactly what I wanted.  Somebody else chimed in “my GPS watch says 8.45 pace” and the original guy retorted “well, that is because you are catching up to me.”  Good conversation for distraction.  Sure enough, at the first mile marker, I hit the split time in 9.06.  So, big relief, one mile down, 25.2 to go. 

Mile marker two found me at a 9.06 split.  Good consistnecy. 

Mile marker three was 8.38 so a little fast.  All in all, a small mental victory, the first battle was won.  I had a nice comfortable relaxed pace going, let’s just keep it up, don’t go any slower but certainly don’t start pushing the pace either.  MM 3 was the first aid station, and I almost skipped it because of the mass throng of people.  I ended up getting a Gatorade on the backside of the aid staiton.  Normally the rookies and the desperate runners all clog up at the beginning of the aid station while the experienced and non-desperate runners cut in on the backside fighting through fewer bodies.  The road was pretty much covered in empty cups.  At this point I noticed a female runner in front of me who had her left leg amputated below the knee.  I was very impressed and as I passed her around mile marker six I let her know she was doing a great job. 

Between MM 4 and 5 I found some bushes and went to the bathroom.  After that I sped up for a few min. to try and see if I could catch up to some of the people I was running with before. 

At MM six and a half I heard someone say “Mormon Colonies”.  So I asked out loud “who is from the mormon colonies?”  It turned out that he was the son of one of my Dad’s best friends.  There were several others from that family running in a group together.  We chatted about how they knew my siblings and where they were living etc.  I told them where I lived and that I know his brother from my town as well. 

About then, MM 7 was coming up and this was supposed to be the first aid station with “GU”.  I heard one of my new running friends saying that they had done that mile way to fast.  I knew that I had to move forward so I bid them a good race as I did all of the runners I chatted with that day and focused on getting a GU.  Unfortunately, they did not have a GU at that aid station so that was disappointing.  I took a Gatorade as usual and was off to conquer the infamous Veyo hill.  Veyo hill is the steepest of the hills and goes from about mm 7.5 to mm 8.5.  In the middle of the hill I had pre-staged the first of two salt capsules.  I stopped and picked that up and carried it in my hand until I consumed it at mm 9.  The hill wasn’t that bad.  I tried to focus on swinging my arms and leaning forward slightly.  At the top of the hill the morning sun was coming directly into my eyes. 

From mm 9 to 12 is basically a slight but steady uphill that really wears on you by mm 12.  In the middle there was a restaurant with good smells of breakfast food that reminded my how hungry I was.  At mm 9 I struck up a conversation with a runner which he and I had been leap frogging for a while.  He was planning on doing a 3.55 time and I told him that I would be happy with a 3.55 time but wanted to get closer to 3.40.  He then asked me when I was going to let loose and then I kind of realized that it was time to start getting my mile splits down to the 8.30 range.  I had passed the 4 hour ballons around mm 5 or so and we could see the 3.50 balloons up ahead so I put that as my goal to chip away at those balloons.  I wished him a good race and ran on.  I hoped that a three mile uphill would not be a bad place to start a mid-race surge. 

MM 10 to 11 I ran an 8 min mile.  So at that point I had to ease back, and not push it on the next mile.  I had to remind myself there was plenty of race left to make up time.  Between mm 11 and 12 my hamstrings tightened up slightly and so I tried to not push the pace.  After 12 I knew I could start pushing the pace for a while because there were no uphills until mm 18 or so.  I pulled along side a runner that was going exactly my pace.  His name was Bud and he gave me a sweaty handshake right there in the middle of the race.  We ran together for about a mile in conversation the whole way. 

At mm 13 aid station I was finally able to get a GU that I had been looking for which I consumed with a cup of water. 

Around mm 14 I saw a barefoot runner and told him he was looking good.  At that same time I thanked another runner for carrying the U.S. flag as he ran.  At that point I started to get emotional.  My breathing started to quicken as I fought back the tears.  I was thinking about what a great country we live in that we can come and do these races when, in many parts of the world people are fighting just to survive from day to day.  Then I realized that it would not do any good to hyperventilate so I had to start thinking about something else to calm down.  That same mile I realized that I would meet my future sister-in-law for the first time during my race and I started to think about what I would say and that I would actually stop to say hi. I knew that my brother would be with her and I thought it would be fun to have a memorable first meet and greet her.   I started to get emotional about that too, thinking about all of the prayers that have been offered in his behalf etc. etc. etc.  So then I had to calm down again and focus on the race and how my pace was doing. 

At mm 15 there is a steep down hill curving around an iconic conical shaped dormant volcano.  At this point I really opened up and let the hill carry me to a 7.30 pace for two miles in a row.  Around mm 15 on the steep downhill I caught and passed the 4 hour and 50 pace group.  There was a little glob of them running together that were undoubtedly all best friends by that point.  I said “what pace group are you guys, 4.50?”  They affirmed this and then I told them that I had been trying to catch up to them for the last fourteen miles.  They then chided me for being fickle for joining them and the running on ahead.  I told them that they would see me on the next hill.  I said that to make them feel better but I really felt like saying that they wouldn’t be seeing me again if I had anything to do with it. 

At mm 16 or so is where the Snow Canyon Parkway intersects with hwy 18.  So there were some people there yelling, holding signs and taking pictures.  This gave me a boost of energy and I kept pushing the pace.  I was feeling really well, evidenced by the two fast miles in a row. 

At mm 17 I hit the wall.  The fatigue set in and my legs started to get tired.  Despite the fatigue, I still felt like I could push through it.  I remember mm 18 specifically because in 2006 at mm 18 I was so tired and that I had to actually walk for two minutes.   So, on a comparative basis at this point in 2010 I was doing very well.  I was passing everyone. 

Between 18 and mm 19 there is a hill and the aid station was at the top.  I remember asking out loud to no one in particular, which hill was worse, this one or the Veyo hill (mm 7).  Two or three people responded that this was worse because it was fairly late in the race.  At the top of the hill I remember several people stopped and stretching leg muscles.  About half the people were walking up the hill. 

At the aid station at mm 21 I picked up the second during the race and third overall packet of salt/electrolyte capsules/tablets that I would take that day.  I can’t remember if I took it there or if I carried it in my hand until the mm 23 aid station.  I do remember taking a cup of water and pouring the whole thing over my head.  I was careful to pour it on the back half of my head and tilt my head slightly back because I didn’t want a bunch of salt from my evaporated sweat running into my eyes.  This helped cool me down for a little bit.  400 meters later they had some misters to run through but I decided not to run through them because I was already on the wrong side of the road and I didn’t want the salt in the eyes.  Little did I know that I probably should have taken advantage of everything I could have to cool off. 

Between mm 22 and 23 there is a long protracted down hill.  At this point in the race it was pretty much torture on the legs.  It was painful.  In fact, I actually altered my running gait so as to flex my quadriceps as little as possible on that down hill.  A gentle downhill would have been welcome, a steep one was just as bad as the uphill at mm 19. 

At 23 is when you make it into town and have crowd the rest of the way.  Running with crowd support gave me some mental energy that lasted until 24. 

At 24 is where the proverbial wheels fell of the cart, so to speak.  At his point for me it was all about finishing and not slowing down to much.  This other guy that was wearing his shirt around his head like a turban passed me and I decided that I would draft off him and stick with him for as long as I possibly could.  So I got right behind him and hooked on the figurative tow strap.  He was taking longer strides and so I took long strides.  He took me as far as I could go and then I had to let him go.  I think it probably lasted maybe 100 meters or some short distance but that was pretty much my last push of the day.  At that point it was all I could do just to take shorter strides and try to keep somewhat of a respectable pace going to the finish.  Sometime after the race I read a quote that said “nothing you can do can prepare you for the last three mile of the marathon”, and I feel that was true in this case.  At this point I could also feel myself starting to get hot and I could tell that I was in overall pain.  It wasn’t just my legs, or my lungs or anything specific.  Overall pain and agony.  I knew that I was putting my body to the limit of what it could handle, to the edge of the envelope.  I was towing a fine line, beyond which I felt like I was risking my body shutting down as a result of extreme physical stress, and probably out of some innate sense of self- preservation.  This is a point where it all becomes mental.  What’s in my head?  It’s the mind game.  Deep inside me somewhere I have been traveling down a long hallway which I have traveled down frequently in training for six months previously.  I have not travelled this far down the hallway before in the previous six months.  At this point I get to a door which I unconsciously know is there.  It leads to a dark room.  This door and room I like to avoid and ignore for the most part.  In fact, I rarely get that far down the hallway of my soul in the first place.  I don’t like to go there because it brings physical pain.  As a habit I try to avoid physical pain.  Except in running.  When I am on training runs, I peek down that hallway and maybe inspect some of the rooms accessible through minimal or sometimes moderate physical pain.  However, when I am in a race I find that I usually get to one of the harder to reach rooms sooner or later.  When I get there I have the choice to open the door and let the light of my mind enter and illumintate the room, or to keep them closed barred by physical pain.  The longer the race, the longer the hallway to get to these rooms in the first place.  When I end up in front of the door, there seems to be a bigger the barrier to open the door.  Maybe not a barrier necessarily but certainly reticence about opening the door because I intuitively know what is on the other side.  Pain.  This was miles 24-26 for me, pain.  Breaking down the door and entering that dark room by sheer will power.  As I entered that room the light of self-mastery illuminated the entire room brightly.  The illumination of that dark room hidden in the deep recesses of my soul was extremely satisfying for some reason.  I have found that the reward is not the contents, the decoration or the size of the room but the illumination of the room itself.  The fewer dark rooms in the house of my soul the better.  The more rooms that I can illuminate the brighter my whole being will shine.  I have also found that these rooms habitually grow dim and the less I open the door the more dark they get.  It is a constant battle.  But on Ocotber 2, 2010, I traveled down a long winding path that I had thought about many times over the period of a year and trained for this for six months.  I traveled down that hallway to the nether most reaches of my being, and found that dark room.  I knocked on the door, I wedged it open and I finally threw the doors open and the light of self mastery and illumination flooded in; which light, while acknowledging the door of physical pain and accepting it as a necessary step for admittance to the room, brands the physical barrier of pain as momentary at best and which light, in the end is most satisfying. 

Anyway, back to the race.  The last .2 miles I decided that since I had worked so hard for so long, I was going to enjoy the last straightaway and look for family and friends.  So all kinds of people were passing me but I didn’t care because I had only let four people pass me from mm13 to 23.  I saw my sister-in-law and her husband.  They ran with me for about a block or two until a policeman motioned to my sister-in-law that she couldn’t enter the runner’s chute, so she reluctantly stepped out.  She was running barefoot too!  After I crossed the finished line I saw my family, and I was so happy to see them.  That was a sweet reunion. 

 

Post Race

 

This is a story in and of itself.  I got nauseated and had to go lay down in the shade.  I ended up throwing up twice and not being able to move much for about two and a half hours.  The door of pain was extracting it’s pound of flesh on the way out, post-mortem.  Consequently, my family and I got separated and they couldn’t find me.  The problem was that I was still in the runner’s finishing area where spectators are not supposed to go, and I hadn’t told them where I was going to be so it was a bad decision on my part.  We finally were able to re-establish a line of contact and in the end everyone came out alive and healthy.  That night I went to Priesthood session with my brother and his future in-laws and family which was great.  In closing (no, I am not going to bear my testimony) I would like to leave you with a poem for thought. 

 

 

“The Few” by Edgar A. Guest

"The easy roads are crowded And the level roads are jammed; The pleasant little rivers With the drifting folks are crammed. But off yonder where it's rocky, Where you get a better view, You will find the ranks are thinning And the travelers are few. Where the going's smooth and pleasant You will always find the throng, For the many, more's the pity, Seem to like to drift along. But the steeps that call for courage, And the task that's hard to do In the end result in glory For the never-wavering few."

Reflections upon summiting

Here is a picture of what part of my journey has looked like.  This particular section of the journey I happened to drive in a vehicle.  I took this picture at the top.  Even though the depth perception is difficult to detect I was standing on top of a huge drop off and you can see the road way down there.  You can also see smoke from a forest fire in the area. 

 

 

Often times, despite all our efforts and the exhiliration of summiting, or overcoming a difficult challenge, there is smoke impeding the great view that we expect.  Sometimes the result or outcome is not what we had envisioned.  Does that then nullify or invalidate the efforts expended to get to the top?  Our perception of the top seems to be closely dependent on our attitude during the climb. 

2006 St. George Marathon Race Report

Here are some memories from  the 2006 St. George Marathon

 

On Saturday October 7, 2006 I participated in the St. George Marathon. I hesitate to describe it as "running" since I believe that "jogging" would be more of an appropriate term for how I did it. I started the Marathon with some family and a friend of a family member so that was nice.  We left our hotel room on Bluff street at around four thirty in the morning. We parked on the north side of the temple and walked a couple of blocks to Worthen park where we loaded onto a yellow school bus. Each seat on the bus was occupied. While traveling to the starting point I was somewhat nervous. I wasn't really sure what to expect. The temperature was cold. There were a lot of campfires lit to keep the runners warm. Only the first two layers of people get any heat from the campfires. Luckily there was a fair amount of human body heat as 5,100 humans are milling around, and it cuts out the breeze if you are in the middle. The first thing I did was go to the bathroom so that I wouldn't have to wait in line before the rest of the people got there. Then we stood around the campfire for about an hour. Around six thirty I went to the bathroom again. I then did a five min warm up and some stretching. Around that time, we removed all of our sweats and sweaters and put them into a bag with your name and number on it. Then we threw them in a U-haul truck to be picked up at the end of the race. Right then I had to go to the bathroom for the third time so I headed off into the bushes. At exactly that moment, the race started. I looked over to the starting line and no one was really moving so I figured I had time still. It took seven minutes from the starting horn until I crossed the starting line.  In the chaos of the last minutes before the start I lost the group I was with except for the one friend.  I had a Mexican flag pinned on the back of my shirt. Each runner has a chip attached to their shoe laces that gives you an exact time of when you crossed the starting line to when you cross the finish line. We were in the back. We figured we would let all the masses get a start first. This turned out to be a good idea in the end because everyone was running at a slower pace than my goal so it forced me to run slower the first little while than I would have otherwise. There were some people running with plastic bags around them, apparently better insulation, or they didn't mind throwing it by the wayside after a couple of miles. The first two miles were in darkness. There was a full moon so that enabled me to see everyone. It gave me the same type of feeling as I had as a child when we would get up before dawn, the air being crisp, and head off in the car on a long road trip. All of kids would be kind of sleepy still. My first mile was in ten minutes and something. I was surprised because I thought I was going slower than that. The next two miles I tried hard to restrain myself, but in the end I couldn't help but pass people. The first aid station was at mile marker three. Here is where a lot of people shed their non-running clothes. I arrived at that point in around a minute and a half behind my pace, which was great because that meant that I didn't have to make up to much time later on, I just was hoping that I hadn't started out to fast or would get burned out to soon. At this point there was a lady running beside me. She was probably in her fifties, and she was already breathing really hard. I felt kind of bad for her because she was breathing so hard so soon. I had seen several people head off to the bushes, and the port-a-poties had a line at m.m. 3 so I decided that I would follow suit and at m.m. 3.5 or so I headed off to the bushes to go to the bathroom again. At m.m. 5 or so, you come around a bend and you see the road covered with runners stretching was out in front of you. I thought "Well, my friends are up there somewhere." I spent the first seven mile or so just real relaxed doing the "people watching" thing. There was a man with apparently his daughter, who looked like she was ten. There were several elderly men and women. I could write several paragraphs on funny little antecdotal things I saw, and heard, during the race. A gourp of three guys seemed to have a goal of high fiving as many spectators as possible and talking to as many other runners as they could, all in the loudest voice possible. On group of five seemed to be running partners or something because they were asking each person to describe their worst date. Two guy appeared to be brothers. I heard one say to the other in an obvious attempt to lighten his load "Do you want this?" In exasperation the other answered back "No, you are the one who wanted to bring that anyway." Then the first one answered defensively, "Well, I was just asking." Then you have the runners that are listening to their i-pods and when the talk they think they are talking in a normal voice but the actually talking quite loud "Hey, what did we do that last mile in, I forgot to check my watch?" Well, through m.m. 10 things went pretty smoothly.



Some inspiration via Ironman Triathlon

This is a link to a You Tube video that is less than three minutes long from the Ironman Triathlon that has inspiried me.

Anything is Possible