Utah Valley Marathon

June 10, 2017

Its 4am and I am sitting in the dark on the ground in the bullpen of a mountain ranch outside of Provo Utah waiting for daylight. This wasn’t the start of a horror film but the beginning of the Utah Valley marathon and I was trying to stay warm for a couple of hours until we could begin running down from the mountains toward town. A ranch was the staging site for the start of the race. Porta potties were set up in a field and behind a wooden fence was a bullpen with small fires burning in metal canisters that runners could huddle around for warmth. The high temperature in Provo would end up in the middle 80’s but at this higher elevation and before morning, it was chilly. I had my trusty yellow sweatshirt on but that wasn’t much help so I pulled in my arms and huddled near a group by one of the fires. A couple of hours later and were lined up and beginning the descent down the road outside the ranch and toward Provo.

I didn’t know exactly where to line up so I hung out between the 3:30 and 3:45 pace groups. What I should have done was go further back to the 4 hour pace group but there was a slight overestimation of my ability judge the proper pace on this course. My plan was to run the first mile at an easy pace and go from there- probably too general a plan in retrospect.

The first few miles were in ranch country and soaking up the scenery. Huge farms, mountains, and horses that looked like they wanted to run with us dotted the landscape. A few smaller turns and then a left turn onto route 189 all the way into Provo.

Miles Splits: 1-8: 8:09, 8:06, 8:06, 8:27, 8:24, 8:18, 8:25, 8:57

It was really around miles 8 and 9 where I started the process of slowing down. I felt a little tug in my left calf and then some soreness in my left knee. It didn’t amount to much but since I had never felt anything in a calf that I could recall in any previous race I was monitoring for any worsening of the sensation.

I think the course during these miles went from being largely downhill to net downhill with a lot of uphill segments mixed into each overall downhill mile. I didn’t run enough hills in training was a thought that kept coming into mind. Regardless of these thoughts, the run was beautiful and I was having a great time running at least faster than I had in the last three marathons I had run in. No injuries (yet), Mountain Goat course, or need for snow shoes here.

Miles 8-16 Splits: 9:10, 8:39, 8:46, 9:15, 9:08, 9:02, 9:08, 9:45

At the midway point of the race we passed the half marathon start area and then later went through a mountain tunnel. There was a park near the Canyon that I made mental note to tell Beth and the kids about since it had a playground as well as views of the Canyons. The slowdown escalated on mile 16 and beyond as the repeated ups then downs took more out of me- but again the road was so scenic that I didn’t really mind. I knew that 3:30 was out the window from the start of the race and 3:45 and even 3:50 had since lost their status of reachable target finish times. It was late in mile 21 when I saw a shadow behind me and knew that the 4 hour pace group was about to pass that I mustered my one and only surge and had 2+ pretty solid miles putting space between myself and that group.

By now I was in the outskirts of Provo and more crowd support was lining the streets near BYU. My surge ended with a thud on mile 24 and the 4 hour group finally did go by shortly thereafter. By now it was warm but not truly uncomfortable, the citizens of the city were out enjoying their day and I was thinking about how I was going to keep up with the kids once I finished the race.

Miles 20-26: 10:10, 10:10, 9:50, 10:29, 9:47, 8:59, 8:59, 10:31, 11:00, 10:39 (Final Time: 4:03:33)

A little over a mile from the finish line was a CVS store on the right side of the road. I had watched a video of the course a couple of times and new right where it was and was relieved to catch a glimpse of it- although I noted that Coke was on sale but not Pepsi- so sad. I began to scan the side of the crowd for Beth and the kids. Usually this isn’t too hard but picking out a blonde family in Utah is a bit tougher than in many other places. I finally spotted them a block or two from the finish line and worked my way back to them as soon as possible. Both kids with bibs pinned to their shirts for the kid’s race.

Tasha did run the kids 1K and did a great job as usual. She now has medals from 3 states in her collection. Mitchell didn’t want to run and asked for his number to be taken off as soon as I saw him. I obliged since I don’t want the kids feeling like they are ever forced to run races…this is meant to be fun.

After the kids run the kids jumped in a bounce house for a bit and then we drove out to Wyoming to see some Bison and Prairie dogs and finish our family vacation.

Paavo Nurmi marathon 2016....a late post

A fellow runner asked a question about the Paavo Nurmi marathon and then I realized that I had written a race report for it last year but had never actually posted it here. So here is a belated report for a great little race in rural Wisconsin- that I would very much recommend.

Paavo Nurmi Recap

Weather: Humid but not hot. Most of the first half of the race was run in a fog

Course: Beautiful and very hilly. The definition of a “scenic” marathon

Results: 4:02:13  (13.1 in approx 2:05)

Overall: 32 of 105

Male: 26 of 74....and my 20th State

I have no split data for the race other than the half. Based on the elevation map for the race I knew that a PR wasn’t going to happen and since I had to drive almost 3 hours back to Marquette after the marathon to catch my flight home I decided to just use the timer without GPS on my watch and concentrate on keeping an even effort on the course.

Location: Hurley Wisconsin- a border town just across from the Upper Penninsula of Michigan. I was in Marquette on a business trip and every time I mentioned I was going to Hurley over the weekend before flying back I got funny looks until someone explained to me that Hurley had a reputation bars, saloons, strip clubs, etc. Indeed, after I picked up my packet the night before the run I walked down to Silver Street, where the Paavo Nurmi torch lighting ceremony was taking place at a trail head and observed that the other end of “famous Silver Street” was a glow with neon signs and a significant portion of the people I passed on the street were stumbling. I had pasta dinner at the Iron Nugget Restaurant and walked back to my hotel.

Race morning- boarded the bus to the starting line in Upson. My hotel had a spread out for the runners early enough to sit and eat while waiting. The starting area itself was a clearing across the street from a couple old bar/motels that may or may not have been still operational based on their condition. The morning was densely foggy but not cold. There were only 105 full marathon finishers but there was a half marathon and five-person relay as well. Paavo Nurmi is Wisconsin’s oldest marathon (48th annual) and is a really well run event.

Everyone was friendly and more than a couple of times I found myself beside someone who wanted to chat for a bit while we ran. The elevation chart looked pretty rough in spots- especially between miles 5 and 9. I met a guy who had run every Paavo since 1983 and another who told me that he had run it several times before and had counted at least 30 hills on the course if you didn’t include the small ones.

Volunteers were great. There were sponges, water, and Gatorade at every aid station with ice and treats in the later miles. Sprinklers were set up periodically to run through and one guy was using an old fire truck to pump water out of a lake and spray runners.

I was a little shocked by how slow I ran the first half of the race even with the hills but I felt fine so I just went with it. People kept saying this course was about 20 minutes slower than a standard one and that was pretty true with me. There were a few flattish miles beginning at mile 16 so I surged a bit and again from mile 23-25 before a big hill on 25 ended my hopes of going under 4 hours but I still had a pretty decent negative split on the course and was able to walk to my car and drive back to airport.

Overall: I ran 7 miles slowly today and other than sore quads I’m fine. I’ll take it easy and then start training again for Flying Monkey and potentially First Light in January. I’m glad I got to run this race. I had planned originally on running Marquette on Labor Day weekend but my business trip for moved up three weeks so I ran this one instead. It was early in the season and probably too close to my last marathon for me to have run better even if I wanted to. OC took a lot out of me but I feel good after Paavo so I think I took the right approach. I’d come back if I had the opportunity to see the people here again and would recommend Hurley and Paavo Nurmi to anyone who wants to get a scenic summer race in. I imagine if I was into Hunting or fishing it would be a great area to take a summer vacation and cap it off with a race.

Moments

• Just before the half there was a man who rang a Giant “Freedom Bell” for every runner that came by
• The guy pumping water out of the lake with an old fire truck hose suspended on a ladder to cool us off
• The narrow road over the Gille (sp) flowage where I looked around and there was beautiful mountain lake on each side of the me….breathtaking
• The grizzled runners with long beards- there were several talking about the ultras they were doing and how they come back here every year. I was behind one shirtless subject at the midway point who had found a giant feather he had stuck in the back of his shorts (I assume so he didn’t have to carry it) and kept thinking that based on the feather’s location it must now be both itchy and smelly.
• Mile 20-21 I came over a hill and there was a little black lab that came up to me with a cup in his mouth. I politely declined taking a drink from a canine but he was with a little blonde haired boy that was probably six or seven years old that was holding a cup of water and a cup of beer. I took a beer and he excitedly told his dad that they just had 11 cups of beer left to go before his table of beer could be refilled.