St George Marathon

Yesterday was the St George Marathon which means that my second marathon is done and in the books.

Overall, it went well.  I felt really good through the 30K mark but after grabbing some Gatorade at the Mile 21 aid station, I just could not get the legs working again and the last 5.2 miles turned into a shuffle. I still ended up shaving 24:16 off my Death Valley time.

on the homestretch to the finish

The race itself was great.  With almost 6000 finishers, it was by far the largest race I have ever been in.  Right from the start, it was a world class experience.  Packet pickup was smooth and there was a nice group of exhibitors and items for sale.  The buses from the finish line to the start line were efficiently running.  The start line had a good aid station and a series of campfires to keep the runners warm as we waited for the race to begin.  Aid stations were every two mile, were well stocked and had bathrooms at all of them.  Crowd support was great and ranged from ranchers on their ATVs playing music while cheering us on to crowds as we ran through the more populated sections of the course.

The course itself is a point to point with an overall downhill decent and has been recognized by Runner's World on multiple occasions.  It ran through scenic sections of sandstone as it winded it way from 5240 ft to 2680 ft.  An overall downhill decent does not mean all down hill and the first climb of note was the stretch that started at Velo just before Mile 7 and continued until the Mile 11 mark.  After that, we had two more short uphill bumps at Mile 16 and Mile 18.

My quads are pretty sore today from the downhill pounding and it is time for some downtime to recover.  I plan on taking most of the upcoming week off and easing back into running along with getting in some quality time on the road bike.  The only races left for this year are the Veteran's Day 11K on Nov 9th and the Trails of Glory 12K on Nov 22nd. 

enjoying the sandstone finisher's medal