My first marathon

Howdy all, I thought I'd make my first blog post.  As some of you know, I ran my first marathon this Saturday in Provo. I finally got all the pictures back so I thought it might make a nice post.

I got up around 2:30 am the morning of the race, so as to catch the first bus to the starting area, which left at about 3:30 am.  The bus arrived at the starting area at about 4am, so I got to twiddle my thumbs for a while until the race start at 6am.  Luckily the organizers had a bunch of campfires set up so we got to sit around and chat while staying warm. They also offered a gear drop service so we could wear warm clothes during the wait, then they transported all our gear to the finish area for us.

The start area was up by Wallsburg, which is a few miles southeast of the Deer Creek Reservoir (course map here).  The race started promptly at 6am, and I got off to a really good start since it was mostly downhill, with a strong wind at our backs.  I think I maintained a 9:30 min/mile pace for the first 5 miles, which is ridiculously fast for me.

That changed at about mile 7, once we hit the reservoir.  There the course leveled out a bit, and the strong wind ended up in our faces.  Oh well, good things can't last forever.

Here I am at about mile 10.  You can catch a glimpse of the reservoir behind me.  You can see it's a beautiful day, and I'm still kicking my feet up by a fair amount.

I was really worried about making the 6 hour cutoff time.  The race info said we'd have to maintain a 13:30 pace in order to finish in time.  My training runs had all been in the neighborhood of 15 min/miles, so I knew I had to keep up the pace in order to make it.  Rather than try to maintain a steady pace the whole time though, I decided to go all out for the first half, so as to buy myself some breathing room on the second half.  I know, I know, that's not what you're supposed to do, but I figured I was gonna be really tired for the second half no matter what I did, so why not take the pressure off?

I made the halfway point at 2 hours, 24 minutes, which was an 11 min/mile pace!  I figured I was sitting pretty.  I had 3.5 hours to finish up.

At about mile 15 I ran into our Art Director, Seth Taylor.  He had been in the neighborhood, saw the marathon, remembered I had mentioned I was going to run it, and decided to take the opportunity to snap some pics.  I had to quickly put away the energy bar I was munching on and try to make it appear like I was really running.  He kept sprinting ahead of me to take a picture from in front.  They kept coming out fuzzy, so he'd have to do it again. Seeing him sprint at this point in the race was kinda making me want to hurl, so I sorta waved him off.  Sorry Seth.

I think miles 16 - 20 were kinda rough for me.  I had only gone up to 20 miles training for the event, so wasn't sure what to expect once I got past mile 20.  Plus the realization that I was really tired, and still had 10 miles to go!

Here I am around mile 16.  It looks suspiciously like I'm walking up that big hill, but I'm sure that's just an effect of the camera...

Miles 20 - 24 were pretty smooth, even if I wasn't going very fast.  I think I hit some sort of bizarre second wind.  Miles 24 - 26 were probably the hardest, but that was offset by the fact that I was so close to the finish, which was very exciting!  I was also texting Lauren, who wanted to be there for the finish, but was stuck in traffic.  She was sending me supportive texts and it made for an exciting race against time to see who would make it to the finish line first.

The finish line was on Provo Center St.  At about 100 North I looked up and saw a big clock over the finish line.  My brain slowly registered that the clock said 5:59:01.  I had less than a minute to cross the finish line!  Yikes!  My legs had nothing left in them, so I started swinging my arms like a madman in an effort to leverage my upper body strength into some kind of sprint.  Somehow it worked!  As I crossed the finish line the big clock said 5:59:42.

Here's me in the finish chute.

Here's my glamour shot.  For some reason I look more like a drunk tourist at Oktoberfest rather than a marathon finisher.

Mom was waiting for me at the finish line, which was a nice surprise.  I'm not sure I had even told her about the race.

Lauren ended up getting to the finish area only 8 minutes after I finished! She was really excited about my finishing, and her energy was very infectious.

So the final results came in and I finished in 5:55:12, which was as good as I had hoped for.  That means my pace for the second half was about 16 min/mile, and my overall pace was about 13:30.  A few speed walkers passed me on the second half, lol, but I was very pleased with my finish.