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.
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