Marathon Day

The St. George Marathon was quite an experience. It started with my watch alarm going off at 3:10 am. I probably didn't even need an alarm because I barely slept. I got ready, ate a bagel and a banana, and headed off to catch the 4:00 bus to take me to the starting line. I hadn't mentally prepared for the 2 hours that I would have to wait for the actual race to start. I really wished that I'd had a book but when it started raining I realized that wouldn't have worked either. The marathon organizers were so prepared and had garbage bags that we could use to make impromptu rain coats. Some people wore those garbage bags the whole race. I really thought that the rain would let up after a little while, so once the race started and I had warmed up, I took my "raincoat" off. I think it was after mile 19 that I thought, "Oh, the rain has mostly stopped." It was on and off again after that.

The first few miles, I was thinking, "What the heck am I doing? I'm going to catch pneumonia." We started at 6:45 and it was still dark, so here we (more than 6000 crazy runners) were, trying to run without tripping over each other, in the dark, and getting wetter by the minute. I really was questioning my sanity. Little by little though, my attitude started to change and I was enjoying myself. When I ran the SLC Marathon, I kind of crashed at about 18 miles and the last part of it was pretty hard. This time I tried to conserve my energy a little and I was able to really enjoy the last part of the race, especially the last 3 miles. I was hurting, definitely, but I was able to pick up my pace just a little and feel really strong. It was awesome. I finished in 4:19:05 and beat my last time of 4:32:00, so I felt pretty good about that since I didn't feel as prepared for this one. St. George is a better, easier course but it still feels good to beat my previous time. It was raining, after all. :)

The crowd support once we got into town was great and that made the last few miles funner, too. There were three signs that I saw sponsored by the mortuary that were particularly cool. The first one said:

Metcalf Mortuary 3 Blocks Ahead
DIG DEEP!

The second one said:

Mortuary 1 Block Ahead
LOOK ALIVE!

And then finally on the corner at the mortuary there was a sign that read:

We'd rather wait for you,
KEEP RUNNING!
Good job, marathoners
From Metcalf Mortuary

Another one was pretty funny too but you have to have some background. Gunlock is tiny little town on the race route that has a population of no more than 500, but probably much fewer. It's towards the beginning of the race. So I saw another sign that said:

Gas $3.99

Running Shoes $100

Running Redneck from Gunlock... Priceless

Maybe that's only funny after you've run 23 miles but I was quite amused by it.

Anyway, it was a great day! I'm so glad I did it. I am very, very sore today and I have a few spots of chafed skin where my wet clothes rubbed too much but over all I'm doing well. The knee I've been having trouble with feels pretty good, so I'm very grateful for that. The race organizers where amazing and I'm especially grateful to all those volunteers who stood in the rain for hours giving us water, Gatorade, bananas, etc. I'm taking a break from marathon running for a while but I hope to go back to St. George within a few years. It was awesome!