The Results...

Saturday was the Bear Lake Mammoth Marathon in which David and I signed up to run the 10K. 6.2 miles of putting one foot in front of the other and racing against ourselves and our own personal clocks. I was both nervous and excited as we got to the Garden City Park to pin on our numbers and start the race. My excitement waned a bit upon finding out that the proper computer hadn't arrived, so we would be timed via stop-watch. But, since I wasn't in it to win a medal or anything, that didn't really matter too much in the grand scheme of things.

The course was mapped out to start on the bike trail and head south around the lake. We were to go so far, turn around, run back past the park and do a twelve block loop through town and return to the park again to cross the finish line.

So, the whistle blew and off we went. I was feeling pretty good about my performance simply because I kept on going. It's much easier to push yourself when everyone on the road is running too. I maintained a good pace, not too fast, but not too slow. On the website it said that there would be water stations every 1.5 miles. So I kept running, hoping to gauge my distance and time by the water stations. I kept going, and going, and going. We had to cross the road, another bit of a disappointment because there were no police there to stop traffic, so we had to wait for a good opportunity... a little nerve-wracking, but we all survived. We got to the turnaround point and there still wasn't a water station. I was certain that we had run more than the allotted 1.5 miles and I was getting a little edgy.

I had tried to hydrate myself fairly well before the race started, but since I knew that there would be water along the route, I didn't try too hard. So I turned around and headed back with hopes that perhaps they had set up water stations after I had passed. To make a long, drawn-out section of the story go a little faster, there was only 1 water station and it was at the end of the race... I was very mad. It's difficult to run 6.2 miles with no water. There was a lovely station set up for the 1/2 marathon and full marathon runners with bananas, power bars, etc. but no water. I asked the people manning it if they had any water and they said that it got forgotten. Nice huh.

So, I plugged along, cursing the organizers for forgetting the promised liquid refreshment and made it back to the park. I started the loop through town and never had one mile been so hard. I ran it like a injured animal... jog a little here, walk a little there and pant my life away while trying to catch my breath and make my legs do the job. I couldn't help but wonder why I was having such a hard time with this last mile. I just didn't have the oomph to keep going steady. But I pushed my way through. Made it across the finish line and felt like I was going to throw up.

It was then that everything became clear. I heard from a fellow 10k'er that the organizers had misjudged the route and we had actually run 7.3 miles. No wonder the last mile was so hard! I immediately wished death on the organizers of the mammoth marathon. But at least I felt better about my time. 7.3 miles in 81 minutes. Not too shabby.