The Utah Grand Slam is now over

It's been a long season of marathon running for me this year. I'm glad it is finished and I was successful at finishing the four marathons of Utah Valley, Park City, Top of Utah and St. George. I got my bright yellow t-shirt and unique Grand Slam beehive medal as well as my St. George dark long sleeve crimson t-shirt and sandstone finisher award. On Friday night, before the run I enjoyed the hospitality of dinner and a overnight stay at my Aunt Evelyn in St. George for a great spaghetti dinner and it was interesting to catch up with my nephew Jeff and his wife. A special thanks to Aunt Evelyn for waking me up at 3:45am when my alarm on my cell phone failed go off after being programed mistakenly to 3:30pm. Missing the wake up call is the stuff I stay awake the night before worrying about. I couple notes on the marathon. I keep wondering why I run these marathon races, because they are mostly out of my range. Next year I really need to either change my training schedule or my race attitude. At 4:15 am I was in the bus line and sat next to guy who said that he had ran 20 St George marathons as we talked on the ride to the start. The weather was quite warm before the start and the PA announcer said it was predicted to be the hottest temperature finish in SGM history. I meet a couple of friends from work and we chatted around the camp fires that were burning to keep us warm. The starting gun went off and I waited for about 9 minutes before I could get to the start line. Then the fun began and continued for the next 5 hours and 12 minutes to the finish. I love the signs that people make for friends and family which are posted along the course. My favorite this year was "these marathons would be fun if you didn't have to run 26 miles". Another sign had "warning annoying spectators ahead". You know after a while all the people cheering, telling you your almost there or some other motivational go for it can become just annoying. The race support was great, lots food, water and Gateraid. About mile 21 the aid stop even offered a Coke, I never had that in a race before. The best by far was the big missile Popsicle at mile 24, they were so good. It didn't look like normal race support stop, just some people giving out freebies, but again they really hit the spot for me. Well that is the end of the road running for this year. Time to rest and think about the goals for next year.