Deseret News Marathon  

As I’ve told people before, my philosophy for doing marathons these days is that my last marathon is my last long run for my next marathon.  This means I’m always in shape to complete a marathon within a given month.  However, there are two times per year when finding a marathon is a problem: Wintertime (late December – early January) requires traveling south to find a race; and mid-Summer, in which marathons are even scarcer.

Having done a marathon in mid-June (Canton, Ohio), I started looking for one to do in July.  Choices were slim.  There was one on Lake Superior in Michigan, but travel was prohibitively expensive.  One in Idaho was also difficult to get to and Yellowstone would require a two hour drive each way to visit while there.  But while looking at comments about the one in Idaho, one person mentioned the Deseret News Marathon in Salt Lake City, Utah.  I realized it would be a lot cheaper to reach, with a direct flight out of BWI.  So we planned a short five-day vacation to go with the race.

In looking into the Deseret News Marathon, I learned some interesting information about it and its history.  Sponsored by a local newspaper, the race was over 40 years old and a rather low-key affair with only 600-700 runners.  However, lately there is also a 10K race at the same time, which attracts several thousand participants.  The race takes place on Pioneer Day, which is July 24, a Utah state holiday, commemorating the day that Brigham Young and other Mormons went through a mountain pass and entered the Salt Lake Valley.  In fact the race started at that mountain pass, 3,000 feet above the valley and proceeded down Emigration Rd. toward SLC.  No matter which day the holiday falls on, that’s when the marathon takes place, meaning this year it was to be Tuesday.

Of course, the area residents were more excited about the parade, which occurs in the morning and finishes at Freedom Park and the later fireworks.  In fact we runners would eventually run along the parade route for a block, before finishing on the periphery of the park.

But I’ll get back to my preparations.  In telling various people about my plans and the steep drop early in the course (1,500 feet in the first four miles), I got some good advice: 

Lee Kauffman said I needed to practice running downhill, which I did, but with only a few weeks of it, there was no way I could do enough to be inured to the pounding of the 7% downhill grade in the first four miles.  Dan Simmons said I needed a couple days to get used to the thinner air.  But I was arriving only 36 hours before the marathon.  I suspect real acclimatizing would take several weeks.  Finally Jim Fischer, upon hearing of the grade of the slopes, said I should walk the first miles.

Monday evening I went to sleep about eight p.m.  After all, it was ten back home.  We had to get up at 2:30 so I could dress, eat a little, drink some coffee and use the facilities in the comfort of my room. Carolyn dropped me off less than a mile away from our hotel at the Energy Solutions Arena (home of the Utah Jazz) to catch a bus between 3:15 – 3:45 A.M.  Settling on the bus, I had a conversation with a guy from southern Utah, who was obviously going to run a lot faster than I.

Upon arriving on the top of Big Mountain, the area was lit with floodlights.  There was one big tent where a number of the earlier arriving runners had taken refuge. I looked around for a place to rest.  I had read that there were only rocks and that I should bring newspaper to sit on.  Actually there weren’t any rocks to sit on, only gravel on the ground.  But I spotted a bench for viewing the valley and only one other guy was there.  So I had  a seat.  The air temperature was in the upper 50s and a bit breezy.  So I got out a long-sleeve shirt and my warm-up clothes and felt fine.  I had read that it could get down to 40 degrees before the start.  I was prepared to wear the shirt at the start as well as gloves, but decided to dress sparingly.  (Carolyn later said she was shocked at how some of the runners were over-dressed.)

Between the openings of the valleys we could see the lights of Salt Lake City in the distance.  The other guy was doing his first marathon, apparently inspired by his wife who was an ultra-runner.  He told me that many of the marathons in the West had the same sort of start: get bused out to the top of a mountain and run downhill.  We watched more buses stream up the road with more runners. 

By 5:10 A.M. I had finished my bottle of Gatorade and got in line for a portajohn. This made more sense than wandering off into the brush since it was so dark that outside the lit area I wouldn’t know where I was stepping and the entire mountainous region is RATTLESNAKE COUNTRY.  It took me fifteen minutes of waiting, but I used the time to strip down out of my warm-up clothes and tighten my shoelaces.  It worked out well as I was empty five minutes before the start and so never felt an urge to go during the race.

Ten minutes before the start, the organizers inflated a start line arch under which we would run and told people to line up.  The sky was beginning to lighten up with sunrise still about 40 minutes away.  I took a spot about ¾ of the way back in the line, knowing I didn’t want to go out fast.  Then we were off – a mass of people slowing descending the ess curved road in semi-darkness.  For the first ten minutes, there were no colors, only shades of black and white.

Unfortunately I didn’t listen to Coach Fischer.  I was jogging down the road.  On a flat surface, I might have been doing a 10:30 to 11:00 per mile effort.  But here I was averaging 9:29 the first five miles.  I could feel my quads acting like brakes with every step.  By four miles into the course, I knew I was going to pay for my foolishness as aches were already developing in my quads. 

Then came the longest uphill on the course, a 300 foot climb in miles 6 and 7.  Suddenly I realized that I was indeed over 6,000 above sea level.  I was sucking wind and doing a twelve minute mile.  By the time I got over the hills and begin descending again, my quads were already in pain and my stride began to shorten.  By mile eight I had slowed to the pace that I usually reach at mile 22.  So I resigned myself to the slog.  After all, I had passed a guy in mile five, whose shirt said on the back, “I’m Woody and I’m 80.  If I can do it, you can do it”. (Woody, actually 81, eventually finished nine minutes behind me.)

Meanwhile at least the weather was cooperating.  It was cloudy and, in fact, rained a bit at one point, before I arrived there.  (Rain in Utah is slight, mainly coming from evaporation from Salt Lake forming clouds and precipitating back on to the peaks.) The scenery of running through a mountain valley was great.  After we came down the first descent, we had to share the road with cyclists, who would crank up the hills and fly back down.  Later, cars were also present and that became a bit precarious, avoiding both types of vehicles.  For a few miles the runners kept switching from running on the right side to the left side and back again. Also, while descending the lower slopes of Emigration Road, I noted the appearance of houses along the road and up on high slopes.  This must be expensive property to live on, not to mention that people probably needed a four-wheel drive vehicle for the winter snows.

After 16-18 miles, we entered the outskirts of SLC.  That’s when I realized there were more uphills than were apparent on the course map.  I would estimate at least a 1,000 feel of climbing, meaning there was at least 4,000 feet of descent.  By mile 20, the sun had come out, not helping matters.  I could no longer even jog downhill and thus had some 14 – 15 minute miles in the last 10K. Way before this point I was also sweating, but compared to running in Delaware, the humidity wasn’t bad.  The weather reports later on Tuesday kept mentioning the “high humidity” and how it would go away by Wednesday.  Carolyn and I found it amusing.

Just past mile 23, we turned a corner where two policemen were directing traffic.  One of them was reading inspirational sayings.  As I went by, he said, “There is no education like adversity,” (which, I have since found, is attributed to Benjamin Disraeli).  Pondering that for a moment, I called out as I shuffled on, “Well, then I’m going for a PH.D!” Then I was off toward the finish to earn it. 

In the last few miles, we were running parallel to the route of the parade (the real reason people were camped on the sidewalk that day).  With a mile to go, we turned and ran to the parade route and ran along side it.  I actually heard some cheers and a couple kids stuck out their hands for slaps.  Then we turned again for a hot sunny slog to the finish.  Several blocks down I saw Carolyn waiting, still several blocks from the finish.  Early on I started worrying that she would be worrying about me because I had foolishly predicted a four and a half hour finish.  She easily kept up with me as I made my way to the finish line.  I was barely faster than a walk.  Done in 5:09:02.  Later learned I was second (out of only three) in my age group.

Then it was time was a slow woozy walk back to our rented car.  Because Freedom Park was the site of the day’s festivities, it was impossible to park within it even though there was many open parking spaces.  We had to walk over ¾ of a mile.  My steps were very short at this point and Carolyn had to keep stopping as if she was waiting for a toddler to catch up.

Overall, I’m glad I did this race.  We had never been to Utah and we were satisfied with our visit, although Utah deserves more than a five-day visit to adequately take in what it has to offer(see  story above).  I found my quads and calves more beat up than any marathon since the first time I ran Boston in 1997 when I was at my best and was running for a PR (over 1 hour 45 minutes faster than this finish). It will probably be a while before I attempt a course like this again.  BTW, the guy from southern Utah said that the Saint George Marathon (which many people try to enter for a BQ), while downhill, drops much less and is much more of a moderate drop.