Matt's Basic Life & Occasional Adventure: 26.2

Landon and I had the opportunity to join about 15 other volunteers at the mile 13 aid station of the ninth annual Top of Utah Marathon.

We camped out in our pickup Friday night at the pull-out in Blacksmith Fork Canyon, along with a couple of other volunteers. The canyon is closed to traffic at 6 am Saturday, so we got to sleep in a bit and not worry about beating the closure.

The buses transporting nearly 2,000 runners did start whizzing past on their way to the starting line at about 5 am. Almost every morning (from about 1 am to 10 am) there is a stiff down-canyon wind, and race day was no exception!

The race starts at 5,700' at Hardware Ranch, follows the canyon downhill to the valley, has some ups and downs through Millville and River Heights, and finishes in Logan at about 4,600'. It is a beautiful course with great potential for PR's. The downhill through the canyon (the first 14 miles) is steep enough to give you some extra momentum, but not so steep that it hammers your quad's (like St. George). With the bonus tailwind and cool starting temps. it was a perfect day for 26.2!

At about 7 am we started setting up tables, filling water & Gatorade cups, cutting up bananas and oranges, marking and setting out trash boxes and clothing boxes, and practicing our "hand-offs".

As the runners approach some of them slow down and some don't. You have to call out what you have to offer -

"Water!", "Gatorade!", "Banana!", "Orange!" - then look for some kind of sign or indication of what they want, and then do your best to match their speed and make the hand off. Runner fatigue at mile 13, combined with a dexterity-reducing wind chill and runner congestion can make this a bit of a challenge -

But we did our best!

The race started at 7 am,

and the first wheelchair racer flew through our station about a half hour later. The lead runner,

Hobie Call, came through at about 1:09, ten minutes ahead of the next runner. Call finished first and obliterated the course record by over 5 minutes with a time of 2:16:39! He was averaging about 5:21 per mile!

The second place runner, Kenyan Ezekiel Ruto, finished with a 2:24:26. For complete results go to the official TOU Marathon website: http://www.topofutahmarathon.com/

A few of the fast early runners were a bit demanding and became miffed if we couldn't properly interpret their wild gesticulations and hand them just what they wanted, but generally speaking they were all very appreciative of the hundreds of volunteers who, combined donated thousands of hours.

"Sorry - no doughnuts!"

There seemed to be two different types of runner attitudes: (1) Those who were more serious about a fast finish time or placing at the top of their age group, and (2) those who were much less concerned about speed and time, and more concerned with just finishing and having fun!

In my book they are ALL winners - even the DNF'ers! At least they had the courage to sign up and attempt the marathon. I know how many hours and miles of physical and mental preparation and dedication it takes to prepare for, run, and complete a marathon, and they all have my sincere admiration!

We finished up around 10:30 am,

as some of the last participants slowly came through after being on the course for over three hours...