Number 41 was the Run with the Horses Marathon in Green River, Wyoming on 19 August 2019. I finished in 4:31.45, 12th among 30 men, 3rd of 10 men aged 50-59. This was the slowest run so far, but I feel pretty good about it.
Since I last ran in February, I had planned runs in Nebraska for April and South Dakota in June, but I came down with appendicitis a month before the Nebraska race, so I had to drop out. Subsequently, the race was canceled due to flooding from excessive rains in the Upper Midwest, so that venture seems to have been cursed from multiple angles. I skipped the South Dakota run because we moved into our new house in Durham in late April. I was in China most of the time from May through August, so taking the one week I had in Durham to go to South Dakota seemed inadvisable.
While I run most days in China, runs there tend to be short and slow, I hadn't done any long training runs since marathon 40. My weight has also crept up steadily during the past three years as I have been spending time eating business meals in China and drinking Chinese alcohol. I am currently around 180 lbs, which is depressing since 180 was the cuttoff for the "Clydesdale" division back in Illinois. Lately have been cutting back on alcohol to try and bring my weight back down, but that process has been 2 steps forward, one step back.
I came direct from China to run in Wyoming, leaving Shanghai on Wednesday the 14th. I stopped in Seattle, where I got to visit Kate for half an hour before continuing on to Salt Lake. Jet lag was a bit weird the days going into the marathon, didn't sleep much Wednesday night, slept 12 hours Thursday night, only slept from 9 to midnight on the night before the race. After visiting family for a couple of days in Salt Lake, I drove the 2.5 hours up to Green River on the afternoon of Friday August 16, stopping on the way to explore the Fort Bridge State Historic Site. Here is a picture of me standing in front of the replica of Jim Bridger's trading post
Fort Bridger is isolated now, I can't imagine the feeling of isolation one might have felt there in the 1840's. 70,000 Mormon pioneers walked through there from 1847 to 1867, but even with a few thousand people a year coming through such a place in late summer it must have been mostly extermely lonely. It's of course amazing to realize that 70,000 people could have been so desperate as to walk from the midwest to Utah. I came past here often as a child on drives from Montana to Utah, excited then to be just a couple of hours from Salt Lake. The pioneers would have been excited too, after walking 2 and a half months to only have another couple of weeks to reach the Salt Lake Valley.
I got to Green River around 4 pm and picked up my bib at Expedition Park. I hung around for the spaghetti dinner at 5 and chatted with fellow runners. People came to the race from all over the globe. The total number of participants in the 10K, half and full marathon was less than 150, with the marathon supporting the largest registration.
I met Roni Kauri, who is Finnish but turned out to have lived for 10 years in Suzhou, very near my base in Kunshan. We chatted about running in China, turns out that Mr. Kauri has run numerous marathons in China. He now lives in Seattle and seems to run all over the world. He said that last year alone he ran 26 marathons or ultras, one every other week! He ultimately took second at run with the horses, finishing in 3:28. 38 year old Jeremiah Bartz of Grand Forks, North Dakota took first in 3:21.
Not being able to sleep much Friday night, I decided to get up at 3:30 am and go get coffee and food. I ran into "the wall" quite often at earlier races, I think because I didn't eat enough fuel before and during the run. So I thought that I would have a good breakfast a couple of hours before the run this time. Being up so early in a small town, not much was open. I drove to a gas station and bought a bear claw, a sausage bisket and coffee, but when I came back I noticed that "Penny's Diner," right in front of my hotel, is open 24 hours. I ditched the junk food and went in to Penny's for a skillet with eggs, veggies and potatoes. Here is what Penny's looks like at that time of day:
Of course, the problem with eating and drinking alot right before a run is that what goes in must come out. I spent an hour after leaving Penny's in the hotel room cleaning out my plumbing and putting on vaseline and sun block. Then I drove the start and got out in the brisk morning air.
The race is a relatively challenging out and back, climbing from 6000 feet at the start to 7500 feet at the turnaround. Since I hadn't done much distance training, my thinking was to use this race as a first long run for Fall training, we'll see if it translates to conditioning and desire to try a faster run later in the Fall. I started toward the back and tried not to push anything. The start was just a few minutes after the Sun came into the valley, here is the Sun coming over the ridge at the start:
The ridge in the picture turns out to be the very ridge we will run up. It's referred to as Wild Horse Canyon but its not much of a canyon. The race course runs 2 miles through town to the start of Wild Horse Canyon road, then 3 miles up a Canyon to the top of a ridge, then 8 miles along the ridge. Seems like it would make more sense to call it Wild Horse Ridge. The main elevation gain is from mile 2 to mile 5 or 6, going up that section was pretty brutal.
Keeping with my plan to take it easy, I stopped at all the water stations to top off my bottle and even asked the kind volunteers to take pictures for me. Here is one looking back down the course at the mile 6 water station.
As I approached mile 6 I was very uncomfortable, but not from too much running. Turns out that the problem with eating right before a run was still with me, but I found one of the portapotties convienently places along the route and was comfortable the rest of the day.
The 10K runnners had to turn around before we were out of the canyon section, so they didn't get much of a view. The half marathoners turn around just as the ridge opens up. For the full marathon one gets to run along the glorious ridge with majestic views down to Green River and, eventually, Rock Springs. All high plains desert with no shade but all very beautiful. I saw the race leaders heading back between miles 11 and 12, then eventually reached the turn around myself. On the way back one gets occasional glimpses of distant mountain ranges. Here is a picture looking down the course from the mile 12 water station.
After the turnaround I saw the groups behind me, quite a few of which were walking the course. Good idea. I reached halfway in about 2:25. I ate a Clif bar at the turn around and another at mile 16. Amazing how difficult it is to force food and drink down during a long run. Going into the race I thought that anything under 6 hours would be fine, but now it seemed like 5 hours was in the realm of possiblity and I was feeling good, so I picked up the pace. One guy, Mitch, was in front of me the whole way back. He occasionally stopped to walk so I thought that he might be fading. Following Mitch I passed a few runners on the way back. At mile 6 I caught a fellow who was walking, but he passed me back at the next water stop. He said, "for once it truly is all down hill from here." He was going too fast for my taste and I let him go. However when we next met a slight uphill I passed him for good. I think that I ran 8-9 minute miles for the last 6 miles, I'm glad that I had enough left to really enjoy the down hills. I ran through the water stops, which let me gain a bit on Mitch, but he was really flying and steadily pulled away. At mile 3 we came on three of the famed wild horses and he stopped to take a picture. I thought the horses looked just like the ones you see in videos like this one:
So I kept running. Mitch finished taking pictures before I got within 200 meters and took off. He looked pretty young, so I thought he was hurrying for no reason. But it turns out that we are in the same group and he took second in our group, finishing 5 minutes ahead of me but an hour behind our Finnish friend. He must have run 7 minute miles finishing out. They are both just 51, I could run fast back then too...
Which all brings to mind, what is the purpose of all this running. I finished running reasonably hard. Mitch and I had passed a 20 something walking with about 3 miles to go, clearly in pain. I felt fine at the end, walked to the car and went to the hotel to take a nap. Taking it easy on long runs is definitely much healthier that kicking hard. Racing a 5 or 10K makes all kind of sense, racing hard in the marathon, for me at least, inevitably leads to pain. Running all these marathons, this 50 state project is a nice organizing principle to life. Seeing wild horse "canyon" and the many bits of America I have explored through this project has been wonderful. But what is the purpose of speed? I think that I could run faster, but I will not break three hours. But if I don't run faster how do I know that I could. Have I run my last fast race? Or not?
