Now that the Park City Marathon ceases to exist, I needed a distance race in its place for the month of August. It would only be fitting to do that distance in a trail race, as a precursor to the Wasatch 100 the following month. My friend Layne Koldewyn had signed up for this race earlier in the year, and encouraged me to take part in it as well. I procrastinated until a week before to finally commit to running it as well.
Layne’s parents live in north Ogden, and are not far from where the prerace expo took place. They picked up our race packets for us and let us spend the night before the race at their place. It really helped for getting as much sleep as possible, without having to drive up extra early or getting a hotel for the night. We had a 20 minute drive to Liberty, where we caught a bus to the start area.
It turned out to be an incredibly low key event, with less than 200 runners between 3 distances: half marathon, marathon, and 50K. Our distance was a total of only 36 participants. I really enjoy when races are small. The trails are less congested and I can pace myself without pressure, especially on single track sections. The course was enjoyable, with climbs to some ridgelines that offered great views of Ogden and the outlying areas. On the other side, we could see down into Liberty, Huntsville, Eden, and Pineview Reservoir.
I felt decent throughout the race, other than keeping my heart rate and respiration down while climbing. The last 5 or so miles were a little bit of a drag as it started to get warm, and the descent off the mountain went on and on. I walked most of the remaining couple of miles to avoid overheating, as the course meandered its way around the northwest reaches of Pineview Reservoir, and into the little town of Liberty.
I hung out at the finish line, and drank several bottles of Costco brand electrolyte drinks, as well as water and chocolate milk. They had some wet towels that I used to wring out over my neck and to cool me off. It was getting hotter, and I was really glad to be done. Since I rode up with Layne, I was at the mercy of him finishing, before I could take off and get home to a good shower. He ended up in the same way as I did with the heat in the final miles, and walked a majority of them. He came in about an hour after me.
| 