I flew in to Las Vegas airport on Thursday and met up with a pretty sizeable Runner's Edge of the Rockies contingent, including Coach David, Julie, Karen, Jim, Steve K, Kathy, Jen, Stevie Mac, and Kari. ("Actually I got there ahead of everyone and killed a lot of time in the airport playing slots and watching the ads for shows like Bette Midler, Cher, and Carrot Top." "Carrot Top? Seriously? Somebody advertised that they had Carrot Top appearing at their hotel?") We loaded ourselves up into a couple of rental vans and drove through some beautiful desert country and some amazing canyons to our hotel in St George Utah, conveniently located walking distance from the convention center where the Expo would be, and only a couple of miles away from the finish line-slash-bus loading area for race day morning.
We were all very excited about the weekend and the promise of a fantastic race. A video course tour had been making the rounds via email and Facebook, and we'd all watched and joked about how easy it looked. ("And how fast, considering the driver was going 60 and the video was sped up." "If only you could run it that fast, right?")
Thursday night we had dinner at a sports bar a block away from the hotel. ("Of course, this is a bar in Utah, so there were some interesting rules. For instance, we couldn't carry our beers from the bar to our table. The waitress had to." "Well it's against the law to transport liquor in Utah. Apparently they take that very literally.") It was a perfect evening, both in terms of friends and weather--clear skies but only mildly cool, not even what I'd call chilly. A good omen for race day, I felt.
After breakfast Friday morning I went to the Expo to get my stuff and hang out with more of my friends, including Kelly, Ann, and Angela. Around midday, a number of us loaded into a van and drove up along the course, to preview it firsthand. At the starting zone we stopped to take some pictures and marvel at the campfires which were being set up along the side of the road behind the start line. Then we started driving back down, taking in the views and noting the steep downhills we'd be facing the next morning. My nerves, which had started to kick in on the drive to the airport, kind of went into overdrive at that point. I took some notes about where to hold back and where to open it up along the course, thinking that I would review them before Saturday morning. ("Which I didn't." "Figures.")
After a quick lunch I went back to the hotel to try to relax and get in a quick nap before dinner. The pasta dinner at the Expo was quite good, better even than Oklahoma City. ("And MUCH better than Omaha." "Good thing too, since your father wasn't there to take you to a steakhouse instead.") Unfortunately they did not have live music, but I really enjoyed the chance to spend some time eating and chatting with my friends. I also broke down and finally bought a running shirt with "26.2" written inside a Superman logo. ("Friends have pointed them out to me at each of the last 3 marathons I've run." "About time you took the hint!")
I was up Saturday morning a little after 3 AM. After getting ready, I joined my team and we drove our van to the finish line-slash-bus pickup. We loaded into a bus and were taken to the start line. At just under a mile above sea level, at 5 in the morning, it was freezing! I was glad I'd put my jacket on, but more glad that the campfires we'd seen set up the day before were now blazing with light and warmth. Along with the thousands of other runners, we huddled together near the flames, turning around like rotisserie chickens to make sure everything got warm. My nervous energy was building, but I was quietly ready to rock the hell out of this course.
With about 15 minutes to spare, we wished each other good luck one last time and inserted ourselves into the crowd at various points. I put myself just behind the 4:30 pace group leader, readily identifiable by his red and white balloons.
The race started on time at 6:45 AM. It took me about five minutes to get to the actual start line. Once there, I held myself back, taking the first mile nice and slow. Consequently, my pace group leader soon left me far behind. I didn't care. I figured I'd catch up to him by the end of the race, maybe even manage to pull ahead in the last mile or so. I covered my first mile in 11:09, right on pace and feeling great! The sun wasn't quite up yet, but the sky was starting to lighten. I increased my pace over the next few miles, enjoying the course vistas (what I could see of them) and the excitement of the day.
Now the first half of the course had some interesting challenges. After a couple of shortish and easy climbs in the first few rolling miles, the road settled into a fairly gradual downhill until Veyo, about 7 1/2 miles in. At that point the course climbed steadily up Veyo hill. An interesting thing happened to me at that point. I'd been passed by several people as I held back in the first 2 miles of the course. And, as I was taking walk breaks at the start of every mile, I was playing a kind of leapfrog game with several other runners: I would catch up to them just as I finished each mile, whereupon they would pull ahead again as I started to walk. But as I went up Veyo, I started passing some of the people I'd been leapfrogging, and some that had shot past me at the start. I have to say, I do love doing that. ("Just as long as they don't catch up to you again at the end of the race...")
After another longish climb and some more rolling, the course settled back into a steady downhill after the halfway point. Just before I reached this part of the course, I saw the 4:30 pace group leader, still holding his balloons, off in the distance. I turned up my intensity just a bit over the next several miles, drawing ever closer to him. Finally, at about mile 14, I caught up with him. By mile 16 I had left him behind, and increased my lead over the next two miles by pushing my pace, before forcing myself to settle down again. I still had about eight miles to run, after all, and didn't want to crash in the last 10k!
Since I'd been running downhill for the last several miles, the uphill just past mile 18 was something of a relief. ("Because anything different is good?") At the same time, it was very annoying because it was fairly steep, albeit mercifully short. I deliberately held off my walk for that mile until the bottom of that hill, and used that brief rest to remarshall my mental forces to prepare for the rest of the race. I was aided in this process by the beautifully distracting vistas, and by repeating the final lines of the St Crispin's Day speech from Shakespeare's Henry V:
And gentlemen in England, now a-bed,
Will think themselves accurs'd they were not here;
And hold their manhood cheap, whilst any speaks
That fought with us upon St Crispin's Day!
("That really became my mantra through the last part of the race. It came to me while I was standing around at 6:00 waiting for the start, and realizing that most of my friends--and most sane people--were still asleep." "My god, you are such a nerd.")
After a quick stop at the aid station just before mile 23 to get some BenGay rubbed on my knees (which worked great, by the way--the pain almost completely disappeared and I felt like I had a fresh pair of knees to run on!), I dialed up my intensity a bit. As I said, I'd held back before for fear of blowing out early, and was really feeling tired at this point. But I was also very aware that I was on track to PR and hit my sub-4:30 goal, so I forced myself on, pushed myself past the mental block I've been struggling with ever since my first marathon in 2007. By this time the course had reached the town of St George, and as I ran through the streets lined with spectators, closing in on the finish line, I felt stronger than I ever had at that point in any marathon (even OKC).
(A quick note about Utah spectators: We were all surprised at the large number of small children we saw at the Expo and pasta dinner on Friday, and lining the course spectating on Saturday! Seriously, there must have been eight or nine dozen at each event. The reason why never even occurred to me until after Coach David told a story about a conversation he and Julie had with a couple of natives. When the subject of children came up, and David mentioned that he and Julie had one son, the Utahan's response was, I kid you not, "One doesn't count." Apparently, he had SEVEN. When I heard that story, of course, I realized then why there had been so many kids everywhere.)
My Garmin chose that moment to die on me, at 25.79 miles, with less than half a mile to go. I was pretty pissed off, but I used that to fuel my running to the end. I rounded the last corner and saw the finish line in the distance, and the clock just turning over 4:32:00. Figuring I was still about 5 minutes behind the clock, I knew that meant I was going to hit my goal and come in under 4:30. I poured all of what I had left into my legs, coming across the finish line at a full sprint to the cheers of the spectators, pushing every last ounce of energy into that final burst. I figured I'd finished about 4:27 and change.
After the race I found my Runner's Edge friends, nearly all of whom had either PR'd or BQ'd or both. I checked my official race time and learned that I'd finished even faster than I'd thought: 4:25:34, a 15-minute improvement over OKC! I was so overcome that I could barely share the news with my friends.
I want to thank all of my friends, both in Runner's Edge and elsewhere, for their support over this last training session. The encouragement you all provided went a long way towards helping me achieve this goal (and in such a big way!), and I'm truly grateful. Thank you!!
Official Time: 4:25:34
Total Races: 20
YTD Race Miles: 190.3
YTD Total Miles: 1043.3
On comparing In-N-Out Burger to Del Taco for a post-race meal: Chuck: "Well it's tough to get quality Mexican food at In-N-Out." Me: "It's tough to get it at Del Taco, too."
