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."