UTAH VALLEY MARATHON - JUNE 9TH, 2018 Part 1 of 1

This blog is a little out of order with my Russia posts, but I'm trying to catch up with everything from the past year!

Around December of 2017, I randomly got to talking to a high school / church friend of mine named Tracy about all the races she does.  She is attempting to complete a marathon in every state in the US!  Every time she completes one, she posts pictures about it on Facebook.  We got to talking and I asked her about the next few races she was signed up for…what states were they in?….when were they happening?..etc.  One of the marathons she mentioned piqued my interest.  She was signed up for the Utah Valley Marathon in Provo, Utah on June 9^th, 2018.  This marathon fell about 1 month after the 25k River Bank Run, which I have ran for the last 4 years.  I figured this Utah Valley marathon would work out well for me since I would already be trained for the River Bank Run, which is 15 miles.  It should not be a problem to just run 11 more, right?

I decided to take the plunge and sign up for the Marathon.  The plan would be to fly into Salt Lake City on June 6^th.  Rent a car and drive down to Provo.  Meet up with Tracy.  We would have a day or two to explore the area and maybe to some hiking.  The race would be on Saturday, June 9^th.  And then both of us would fly back to our respective homes on June 10^th.

Very early on June 6^th, I hopped in the Jeep and headed to the Kalamazoo Airport.  My flight left around 6:30am, so I had to get up around 3am to make sure that I got there in time.  The flight from Kzoo to SLC went just fine.  Once I arrived and got my luggage, I took a shuttle to the car rental place just a mile or so from the airport.  Once I got my car, the first thing I had to do was check out this Great Salt Lake that I had been hearing about my whole life.  The airport is not far from the lake, so I figured I had to check it out since I was right there.  I drove to the lake and took the first exit that appeared to have some kind of public access where you could park and walk out to the water.  It was a place called the Saltair Concert Venue.  I parked the car and walked out to the water.  The sand was so crunchy and dry from all the salt.  As soon as I got to the water, I had to taste it of course.  It was definitely saltier then the ocean!  I waded around in the water for a bit.  It was quite shallow where I was, so you would have had to go way out in the lake for it to get very deep.  The other thing that was odd was the smell.  It definitely did not smell like what I was used to smelling at the Great Lakes.  Anyway, I walked back to my car and realized that my feet were covered in so much salt I had to go to the bathroom and rinse them off in the sink!  After that, I decided to run into Salt Lake City for a bit just to see Temple Square….the main square in the city which serves as the Church of Latter Day Saints headquarters.  

After walking around SLC for a bit to take in the sights, I made my way back to my car, drove to Provo and checked in to my hotel.  I got a hold of Tracy and we decided to meet up the next morning to drive to Moab and explore some hiking trails in the Arches National Park.

The 'sandy' area of the Great Salt Lake

Me at the Great Salt Lake - It's really salty and smells weird!

The main LDS Church in Temple Square

There's a Meridian Line going right through SLC - Who knew?

City office building

No one cares except me, BUT this is the flagship Cotopaxi store in SLC! 

Thursday, June 7^th, 2018 – Moab

It’s about a 3 hour drive from Provo South to Moab.  I picked up Tracy at her Aunt’s house around 7 that morning to head to Moab.  It was funny because this was the first time we had seen each other in real life in about 25 years!  The drive to Moab was something straight out of a movie….a lone highway that just goes as far as the eye can see through a brown, dry landscape.  There were areas where it cut through the mountains, but for the most part is just a straight highway for 3 hours.  Since we weren’t on a schedule, we did stop at a few random locations to explore and take pictures. 

Once we finally got to the Arches National Park, we grabbed a map and picked a trail to hike.  We decided to do the Devil’s Garden trail that forms a loop at the back of the park.  It was about a 9 mile drive from the entrance of the park to that far back area where the trail started.  We parked and started our hike. 

About halfway through, there is a small off-shoot trail that takes you to “Private Arch”.  All the large, main arches are named.  We saw that arch, but then could not figure out where the trail went from there.  We back tracked, we climbed up high to see where the trail went, we searched and search and searched, but we could not figure out where the trail went to past the off shoot.  After a while, we just gave up and took the same trail back.  It was a little disappointing, but we still had fun anyway.

Random cemetery that we saw on our way to Moab.  We had to stop and see this odd place!

The white bird house in the upper left of the picture had a notebook to leave notes and it also had an array of little treasure...you could take one or leave one for someone else.  The white square box to the right of the bird house had an history of the cemetery and the once town that was there years ago.

Every Ranch looks like a scene from a movie

Me and Tracy at the beginning of our day hike

Standing underneath Private Arch

Following a trail to nowhere!

Me trying to see where the dern trail goes!

A much needed snack and drink after being in the sun all day

Driving back to Provo from Moab

Friday, June 8^th, 2018 – Packet pick-up and hiking in Provo.

The next morning our first order of business was to pick up our race packets at the convention center.  Once I got my packet, I met up with Tracy and her cousin, Cindy.  Cindy was nice enough to take us to this trail just outside of Provo.  The Stewart Falls Trailhead started just up the road from the Sundance ski resort.  My ears popped about 1000 times going up the road to this trail.  The trail was really pretty easy.  The only thing I noticed at the beginning of our hike was that it felt like I was really out of shape and had a little bit of difficulty catching my breath at first.  That feeling didn’t last long thank goodness (The trail head is at an elevation of 6889 feet).

After our nice hike and conversation, we headed back to Provo for lunch.  They dropped me off at my hotel to relax for a bit and shower.  Later on, I met up with Tracy, Cindy and her entire family for a “pre-race carb meal” at Olive Garden.  After dinner, Tracy and I headed back to my hotel room.  She ended up staying the night because we had to get up insanely early for the race and my hotel room was within walking distance to the place where the buses would pick us up to take us to the beginning of the race.

Packet pickup at the Utah Valley Convention Center in Provo

Trail Tracy's cousin took us on

Me, Tracy and her cousin Cindy

Saturday, June 9^th, 2018 – Race Day! And hiking to the ‘Y’

The Utah Valley marathon started at 6am on Saturday morning.  However, because this was a point-to-point race and not a loop, we had to take a bus to our starting point.  The starting point was 26.2 miles away up in the mountains at around 6500 feet.  The marathon then ran us back in to Provo and finished right down town.  The plus side of this marathon, is that for most of the way you are running downhill.  I found out later that this race is a ‘Boston Qualifier’.  A lot of people who want to run the Boston Marathon will run this marathon in order to get a much better qualifying time because you are running downhill for a majority of the race.  Anyway, in order to get everyone to the starting point in time, the buses ran people from 3:15am to 4:15am.  So, we got up bright and early at 3am in order to catch one of the first buses up the mountain to the starting point.

We got on the bus around 3:45 I believe.  One of the things we noticed was that most people were bundled up like it was snowing outside.  Tracy and I only had on T-shirts and shorts.  A few people commented and said “Oh, you must be from a cold state”.   I didn’t think anything of it until we reached our destination.

The bus dropped us off up in the mountains at this ranch with a large open field.  We got there about 5am, so we had an entire hour of waiting until the race started.   We did not realize how cold we were going to be sitting outside for an hour in the mountains in our T-shirts and shorts!  The race organizers had little fire pits going for people to sit around and stay warm.  I saw a couple of people with sleeping bags! After a few minutes of looking cold and pathetic huddled around a fire like a homeless person, a few locals were kind enough to share a sweatshirt and an aluminum blanket with us.  Thank goodness!  

Finally, at 6am it was time to start the race.  Tracy and I said our good luck / fairwells to each other and we were off.

The scenery for the entire race was amazing.  We ran by ranches, and mountains and waterfalls.  There were times that when I was at one mile marker, I could actually see the next mile marker in the distance….which makes it seem like it’s not THAT far away.  My biggest concern during the entire race was getting over heated.  Even though it started out perfect, I knew the temperature was going to get up into the 90s before too long.  And the last 6 miles were in direct sun with no shadow cover at all.  As I came back into Provo, I saw a bank sign that said that the temperature was 90 degrees.  I couldn’t understand how I wasn’t sick from the heat.  In Michigan, if I was running in 90 degree temperatures I would be dripping with sweat and probably throwing up.  But here it was so different.  My clothes were dry and I felt hot but not sick.  I wasn’t wet with perspiration…..I would just feel the graininess of salt of my skin.  Later on, I would come to realize that what I was experiencing was a ‘dry heat’.  I always thought people were full of crap when they would say….”Oh it’s nice out here in Arizona/Utah/New Mexico etc….it’s 90 degrees, but it’s a dry heat”.  Because the humidity is so low there, all your sweat just evaporates and you actually stay cooler even though it’s 90 degrees out.  In Michigan, you feel so much hotter at 90 degrees because the humidity is much higher and your body cannot cool off like it should.  It seems so simple, but to be honest I had never experienced it before so I didn’t really know until now!

After about 4hours and 40 minutes I finally crossed the finish line!  Luckily, I saw Tracy’s cousin waiting for her at the end of the race.  I went over to her and her husband.  They had not seen Tracy yet, but since our paces were really close, I figured she would be crossing shortly.  Soon we see Tracy coming down the home stretch!  Once we both finished and grabbed some snacks, we headed back to the hotel room to shower and nap after such a long day!  Eventually, Tracy took off to have a BBQ with her family.  I was rested up and decided that I needed to hike up to the Brigham Young ‘Y’ before I had to leave for home. 

Afterwards, I went back to the hotel, showered, and met up with Tracy to hang out and have a beer one last time before we had to part ways on Sunday.  After we parted ways and I made it back to my hotel, I noticed that I was really close to breaking my all-time ‘step’ record on my fitness app on my phone.  Since I only had a few more hundred steps to go and it wasn’t midnight yet, I had to break it.  I walked around the hotel block a few times until I surpassed my old record! 

In a field at 5am, staying warm by a barrel fire, waiting for the race to start

Nice people saw that us non-locals were not prepared for the early morning cold of the mountains elevation, so they gave us a blanket and jacket to borrow until the race started.

6am race start, 6500 feet!

Just a few miles into the race

I could just barely see the next mile marker....it's not that far! :)

At first I thought these were moose....then I realized they were just mountain cows. 

The finish!

The festival at the finish

Hit the gong if you got a new personal record...which was pretty easy to do since the whole race was a gentle, downward slope!

Me and Tracy at the finish!

The Brigham Young 'Y'

Not a long trail.  But it was slow going up since I did this after running 26 miles!

Made it to the top

Sunday,  June 10^th 2018 – Last day and going home

My last day in Provo was kind of a bust.  I checked out a little early thinking that I could visit this Antelope Island State park that wasn’t far from the airport.  However, I didn’t understand that there was only one road to the island and it was an 1.5 hours away…..So, I didn’t end up doing anything else except sitting in a park next to the Great Salt Lake reading a book for an hour or so. 

Once it was time to leave, I made my way to drop off the car, then take the shuttle back to the airport to check in.  As I was sitting there, I saw that my flight to Chicago was delayed because of storms in the Midwest.  The delay ended up being a couple of hours.  I was hoping that since everything was delayed, then my flight from Chicago to Kalamazoo would be delayed the same amount of time so that I wouldn’t end up missing my connection.  When I finally got to Chicago, I saw that my connector flight to Kzoo was canceled and the next flight out was 8:30am the next morning!  So, I got to spend the night in Chicago sleeping in the airport.  Needless to say, it was not a restful night.  Eventually, I boarded the plane and finally made it to Kalamazoo and drove home.

I had such a fun time with Tracy, that I’m pretty sure I will be contacting her again to meet up and do another marathon in another state in the near future!

Goodbye, Provo....until we meet again!