17. ST GEORGE MARATHON Oct 3/09

WOW, what a great race! Though it was October, the weather was great, even a bit too warm, but there was a wonderful breeze for most of it that was awesome! It even misted a bit early in the run. Wonder how they did that? Considering there were
7500 runners plus friends to feed, the spaghetti bash the night before was very well organized with lots and lots of great pasta, choice of sauces, salad and cake and cookies for dessert! We picked up our packets the afternoon before and cruised through the Expo before heading to our lodgings right there in St George at a huge home owned by friend Dave Mugleston. Many thanks Dave! It was interesting to notice how many cars in town had 26.2 decals on them! Even got some for our own vehicles. The shirts they gave us are really pretty, dark blue with a white stripe down each side below the arms and St George Marathon stenciled up the side. On the morning of the run, dozens of school buses from all over the area trucked us to a valley way up north through a couple of quaint little towns, and up and down some hills to a spot where they had some bonfires lit and about a bzillion porta-potties. Probably the only major defect in their planning of the whole event was the shortage of toilet paper!

The clarion start blast sounded a bit before 7 am and off we went, with very much excitement and very much fun! It was awesome to be running with two of my kids who were kind enough to not run faster than their old dad, so we ran the whole race together, even holding hands as we roared across the finish line together! For those who believe the St George Marathon is all downhill, let me clarify a point. It IS NOT ALL DOWNHILL! Near the beginning there is a significant hill as we climbed up out of the little village of Vail with still a slight incline for another six miles or so, THEN the rest of the run is downhill! Believe me we were glad to reach that point where gravity started to be in our favor! Interesting highlights of the run included a very recently demised doe on the side of the road who lost out in an encounter with a speeding vehicle. Didn't take any pictures of that.

We did get pictures of a fellow racer with eight legs in the form of the four inch long tarantula spider. Crazy guy! We tried to tell him he was running the wrong direction but he ignored us and just kept on his merry way.









The rocks and hills along the road came in a variety of colors ranging from white to red, and even in one location, in both colors side by side. A phenomenon that surprised us along this race was the propensity of runners, male and female, to take advantage of bushes by the side of the road to answer the call of nature. I guess maybe nature calls louder out here in the country, no matter how many hundreds of people are watching!





The organizers were kind enough to set up a much appreciated shower on the side of the road that kept some of us from melting away completely!

The local community was really supportive of the race. The highway was blocked off completely to local vehicular traffic, with the exception of ambulances transporting over-exerted racing casualties off to some hospital back in town.






There were spectators along almost the whole twenty six miles, in the small towns we passed through and even out in the country, all cheering us on. I'm guessing our contributions to the local economy helped to make us so popular.

During this race we followed a technique advocated by a gold medal olympic marathoner named Jeff Galloway. We would run for about a half mile, then walk for a tenth of a mile, run another half mile and so on for the whole race. This kept us from injuring ourselves and gave us enough energy to actually run across the finish line. By that time many marathon runners are having trouble to just keep walking.

Then there are the medals at the finish line, if you are fortunate enough to make that far! I'm guessing these things are the reason so many silly people spend so much time and effort and expense to run marathons. These are about the only things that runners take home from these events that endure. Along with piles of photos and the satisfaction of having overcome inertia and accomplishing something significant of course!