Huntsville Marathon #5. Marathon #15, Race #67

Running the 5th Huntsville Marathon I had lofty goals, such as getting a good enough BQ to actually enter and be accepted. My PR going into this race was 4:13:55 and I needed around a 3:52 to accomplish this. If I could do it, it would be a huge PR but I thought it was actually possible. My plan was to run the first 16 miles at an 8:00/m pace, then the last 10.2 at a 10:30 pace or faster if I was able. This would give me a finish time of 3:55 or better. If the race went well, I figured I could eat up some more of that time in the last 10 miles. Well, you know how the best laid plans of mice and men go...

The expo was in Ogden the day before the race, I drove there, picked up my bib #12 and headed to work after doing a quick browse of the vendors. I also asked the organizers if they were doing anything recognizing those who have done all 5 of the races since 2012. I guess I wanted some kind of recognition :) I got off work 2 hours early hoping I could get a bit more sleep than I usually do before a race and I think it worked. I got around 5 hours. 4:15 the first alarm went and I was up before the second one could go. On the road just after 5 a.m. and arrived in Huntsville a few minutes before the buses departed.

They had us line up like school kids and we boarded the buses. Bus #1 wasn't full so I switched over to that bus and ended up sitting with Robert Merkley for the ride up.

This was my 67th race and my 15th marathon. Not too bad for only intending on doing one marathon in my lifetime back in January 2012 when I decided to give this running stuff a try.

I met up with Joshua and after a few attempts we got an acceptable selfie done.

 Arriving at the start, the first thing to do is use the nice clean, non-smelly porta-potties. It wasn't as cold as I thought it was going to be, which had me a bit concerned thinking it could be hot nearer the finish.

Four awesome people who have done the Five Year Streak. Well, three and me.

Someone heard a rumor they were going to get a picture of those who had all the marathons, that got my interest and I wandered around wondering where we were to gather. Finally found 3 others who made the same claim and we used our own cameras to get the pictures done. I think their names were Hazel Riley and Michelle Duran but I can't remember the guys name. I will find out though.

They were running a tight schedule and we ended up not spending too long at the starting area before having to dump our drop bags and hike down the road to the starting line.

Rachel encouraged me saying I'm going to do great today and I've got this! The running community is awesome with encouraging one another. They had a lot more confidence in me than I did.

I got my 92 bpm music ready, Garmin set, and we were off.

The canyon is beautiful, its not like the rugged Cottonwood canyons, but its got a beauty of its own with the colors and it keeps going, and going, and going, which I love.

For me, the course seemed to be a bit long which I've noticed other years. But as we were running I was trying to keep to my garmin's pace per mile and figured it might sort itself out later, which of course it didn't.

I tried not to push it or go out too fast or back off too much and after 10 miles I was within 18 seconds of that goal time, 1:20:18. The next 6 miles weren't as steep and I noticed my times were getting longer for each mile,

I went through the half start mat around 1:46 which is a decent half marathon time. Mile 15 was at a 7:54/m pace and by the end of mile 16 I was about 2 minutes over my goal pace. But now I was into the miles that I could ease up a bit. The 8:00/m pressure was off, I figured a 10:30 pace should be easy to do if I at least just kept moving.

A couple of people saw the 4 on my calf and knew about Run4Fun, Ethan was one and there was Tim who had run with us out on Antelope Island last year, I apologized for not recognizing him.

Galen run up beside me at one point and told me I'm looking strong. He is such an encouragement. He slowed at an aid station and I kept going.

I did really well with getting water at every aid station. I tried to fuel every 5 miles or so, GU, oranges, skittles, banana chunk, whatever they had available. And I also would put water in my hat to help cool me off.

The next three miles I was able to eat up that 2 minutes I had added to my time. Those three miles were 9:14, 9:48 and 9:40. I was 13 seconds to the good and 19 miles were done. But that didn't last long...

My shirt came off as it was heating up some. At one point this girl went flying by me saying. "shirts off, must be Robert!". All I had the strength to do was feebly lift my hand. I had no idea who she was, but later found out it was Dyanna Wallace a fellow Run4fun member.

Mile 20 was almost right on the money, 10:28, but I was realizing I couldn't keep this up and knew my BQ buffer was done. I was also doubting the BQ itself by this point, but thought I'll try to hold on. Mile 21 was about the same. 10:36/m and even mile 22 wasn't too bad at an 11:08. I thought well, I'll still get a sub 4:00 finish time. Maybe. But then mile 23 had me doubting everything. I was at 3:24, had 3.2 miles to go and only 36 minutes to do it in. Even if I could do them all in 12:00/m miles I'd still be over the sub 4:00.

Mile 24 was around 13:34 and the next goal was being threatened, Ryan Delany's PR. The wheels totally fell off the final 2.3 miles. It took me 34 minutes to complete that distance and I was trying to play all kinds of mind games. Run for 25 strides, walk for 25 strides. At one point this young girl came bouncing past running with an older guy and she invited me to run with them, I said "I'll catch up to you in a minute" Lies, all lies.

It seemed to take ages to get through the final miles and it I felt like I was going to puke in this stretch. At the last aid station I had to make a pitstop which I had no choice over. That wasted about 2 minutes I'm sure. I came out of the porta-pottie and asked for some more water before I left the aid station, I must have looked rough as one lady kindly told me to have some Gatorade along with the water which I did and she followed me for awhile to make sure I was okay.

I was quite familiar with the course and knew we were coming to the final turn. There were three guys ahead of me who all looked like they were around my age, really old. I thought I've got to get ahead of them, just in case. Pushing with all I had I did pass them on the slight hill before the turn. I got around the turn and had to take a walk break. Then out the corner of my eye I thought one of them was trying to pass, so I got into a jog/shuffle mode again, it turned out it was Galen. He encouraged me once more and it helped but I couldn't keep it up even though the finish was only 2/10's of a mile away. I told him, one more walk break, and I slowed to a walk for a few moments then figured I can do the rest. The crowd was great, they were hooting and hollering for the runners which helps so much. I finally crossed the finish line and bent over so glad it was over with. They asked if I was okay and I told them I just need to lay down some place. I was thinking along the lines of some grass, but they had a tent set up with recliners and I happily went there with some water to recover. London came in soon after as she has seen me finish and offered to get me a creamy which I thought would be great.

My finish time was 4:11:47, a new PR and slightly better than Ryan's PR for a marathon. After I relaxed in the tent, I wandered around and ended up going to where they did the awards. I thought I'd check to see if I did place but they only had two people for my age group and I wasn't in there. So I went back to where they did the print outs and found out I took 3rd place even though there was quite a spread between the guy who took second place and myself. There were two other guys who were very close to my finish time though and I'm sure they were those guys I passed on that little hill.

One of the things I should have done was taken some Ibuprofen. I had it with me and that might have helped those last few miles.

I also met up again with one of the girls who had also done the race 5 times after the race. I wanted a picture with her so her husband ended up taking our picture in front of the race logo board thingy.

When I called my wife to let her know I was on my way home, she didn't sound that disappointed that I didn't BQ, I suggested she wouldn't have let me go anyway, but she said sure I would! Well, that's all I needed for next year. Like my friend Ryan says, Its on like donkey kong!

Revel Big Cottonwood Half, Race #66 Half #49

This was a race I signed up for ages ago and it hasn't been my favourite race compared to some of the others I run, even though its always well organized, they have the best shirts, free pictures and great bling, but I've always wished there was more canyon running and less outside the canyon running for the course to make it faster.

Big Cottonwood is a gorgeous canyon that we often have training runs in as there are three races which use this canyon throughout the year.

Weeks before, I had decided to just run this race for fun and not attempt a PR or PB or anything, just take lots of pictures. I had spent the week prior recovering from Nebo which totally thrashed my legs for a time that wasn't anywhere near a PR and I've always thought Revel wasn't as fast as Nebo so why kill myself at it. But by Friday my legs were feeling pretty good so thought, ah, why not at least see what I can do.

As usual race morning means getting home from work around 1am and if I actually sleep, getting up a couple of hours later. The alarm was set for 3:30 and I was out the door by 4:05 to try to meet one of the first buses heading up the canyon at 4:30.  All morning I kept thinking why am I doing this. I didn't recognize anyone on the bus so figured it would be a quiet drive to the starting point. I sat by a guy who was doing his first half so he was pretty excited about it even though his sister who goaded him into it cancelled out.

The old school bus we were riding in, after awhile was following a number of other buses who were stuck behind one bus that struggled on the hill. It finally gave up on the chore and pulled over to the side. The congo line of vehicles going up the canyon finally sped up. Our drive must have been so concentrating on the other buses he didn't see the start line, or the guy with the light indicating him to pull over and let us out at the campground, until the runners started yelling at him. I was wondering if we accidentally got on the full marathon bus and were going to be running 13 miles to get to our start line! He finally pulled over and attempted to back down the hill which wasn't very successful and then he decided to just let us out and we'd walk back down to the start.

I trudged straight to the porta-potties knowing they'd still smell good at this time of the morning. The camp ground where we wait for the start is always quite dark so its difficult to find friends. I was standing around the porta-potty area and a girl popped up in front of me and said "Hi" with a big smile. I didn't recognize her at first but I was so happy to see Mercedes! We wandered over to the area  near the trucks for the drop bags while wrapped up in our emergency blankets. It was COLD! Probably around 30'F. We then met up with Mark, Jill, Timothy, Dulcinea, Camille and I'm sure there were others.

After one more trip to the porta-potties it was time to head out to the start line. With close to 3000 people you never really know when the race begins but the crowd keeps moving and while it did I grabbed a picture of myself with Carla Bassano and her hubby Raoul.

My Garmin was set to a 7:20 pace for the virtual partner, and my MP3 player was cued to play approximately 93 minutes of music with a cadence of 92 bpm and then two of my favorite songs at races.

After shuffling for a while and dropping the emergency blankets with all the others we crossed the start line, the race had begun.

I was away's back in the race and passed a lot
of people as I worked my way down the canyon. The first mile was done in 7:57. Slower than I wanted but I felt good. I passed the 2:20 pacers, London and Katie. Usually I've run to music which is 90-91bpm, the 92bpm was new to me but felt fine. Mile 2 was 7:34 and the third mile was 8:08, I was falling behind my goals which were 7:20 for a PR and 7:43 for a PB. Those first miles were cold on the face, I kept breathing into my gloves to try to warm up my mouth and nose. I had thought about wearing arm warmers, but my arms seemed to be okay and my gloves helped my hands. I passed the 2:00 pacers and then the 1:50 pacers Jorge and someone else. I think I heard him comment, I didn't recognize Robert as he has his shirt on.

The next three miles were a lot faster and I gained some of the time back. 7:19, 7:16 and 6:48. I stopped at most aid stations for water. At one I grabbed a GU and slid it inside my glove. At the next aid station I ate it as I got there and then got water to try to flush it down.

I think it was around mile 7 I took off my gloves and tucked them into my belt. I struggle with dropping clothes on the ground, I'm just too cheap.

The next three miles went pretty good too, 7:36, 7:15 and 7:35. I was feeling strong, not pushing it hard, but running comfortably and trying to use the downhill to my advantage.

By mile 10 it was warming up and I had started dumping the water from the aid stations into my hat and cooling my head. The shirt also came off at this distance. We were out of the canyon and into the flat area that usually kills me in this race. I pushed hard trying to avoid walking unless it was through an aid station knowing around mile 11 there was another downhill stretch. On that section I was able to get a mile done in 7:21 which for me is amazing so late in the race on this course. The last two songs started playing on my player, Fight Song by Rachel Platten, which always makes me think of Meridith and the fight she went through, and Come With Me Now by Kongos and they helped me run the final mile which was done at in 7:54 and I could finally see the banner around the finish area.

Two tenths to go and I ran them in silence, I heard someone yelling to me on my left and it turned out to be my friend Janet who wasn't racing but came to cheer her daughter Nicole and all her friends.

Final time, 1:39:43. I got a Personal Best for Revel, way better than I thought I would get. After awhile someone told me I took 2nd place in my age group which I was tickled with. I found out later the guy in my new age group that beat me finished 5 minutes ahead of me, but was only 3 seconds faster than I was. Something you never know in the race as you don't know when people crossed the start line. I'm not sure if they do an award presentation but I got the print out of my time and my placing medal and worked my way up to the end of the finish chute to get pictures of friends.

My camera battery went dead and I grabbed my phone from my car but its not good to keep on while watching people and slow to start back up when it falls asleep so I missed getting pictures of lots of people I knew, but it was still great being there to cheer them on as they finished the half marathon, then the full marathon. There were smiles, high fives, tears and grimaces as people entered the chute but they finished and every one of them were champions to me.

I love the running community.

Finish times for Revel Big Cottonwood, probably my favorite race in 2016.

2013 1:48:31
2014 1:41:21
2015 1:45:29
2016 1:39:43