Bonneville Shoreline Marathon

After a long (too long) break from racing on dirt I was amped to finally get the chance to test my winter training in the foothills above Salt Lake City. Roch and Catherine were kind enough to let me crash at their place the night before the race. As I putted down 33rd in search of their turn suddenly the car behind me flashed me his brights repeatedly. After a long day at a track meet and being tired of driving in the rain, I had a hard time figuring out what was going on. I pulled to the side of the road and the driver jogged up to my window. It was Jared Campbell of LaSportiva and Hardrock fame and RD for the Pocatello 50. He said, "We wondered who was driving so slow, saw the NUUN sticker and the Wyoming plates and thought it might be you." We chatted for a minute and then promised to catch up at the race in the morning. It wasn't long until I found Roch's place (the gigantic Black Diamond van obviously helped). After a few minutes' wait Roch and Catherine got home and I crashed for the night. Rocho was having serious doubts about running in the slop but I knew in the morning he would cowboy up. Sure enough, as I was eating breakfast he came slogging upstairs ready to run. We got to the race with time to spare and chatted with a few of the runners before the start. Roch had informed me that Karl was super fit and ready to go after his course record. At the start it was obvious that he was a man on a mission from the start. After we bombed into City Creek and settled in I quickly fell into the chase pack with Christian Johnson and Kevin Schilling (who was trying to pull off a Boston/BOSHO double). After rounding the radio towers Kevin and I pulled ahead slightly and bombed the long downhill. We just cruised and chatted-until we came to houses..dang!, wrong turn. I didn't panic too much but hustled back to get my spots back. I figure we lost 8-10 minutes. By the time we circled back to City Creek again I finally caught up with Jared. Apparently he had started late and was in the same predicament. We continued to reel people in for the rest of the day. About half way we caught up with a runner, I believe his name was Chuck. I asked how many more we had ahead of us. He wasn't sure but he said there was another "guy with a green shirt" just like mine;) Jared and I knew that it was probably only Christian and Karl in front of us at this point. We continued to push but didn't end up catching them. Jared pulled us up the big last climb. It was all I could do to keep up. It may of been the first time I ever went anaerobic and saw stars while hiking. I threw down a couple of gels at the top and Jared was kind enough to no blow my doors off in the last couple of miles. We finished 3rd in I believe just under 4:20. All in all this was my best time for this race. My best previously on this course was 4:15 but it was short a couple miles because of snow. The 6500 ft. of climb/descent beat me up a bit but I am already feeling better and back at training. Due to construction on our new house I am not running a spring 100. My winter training has been solid and I'm looking forward to building my strength and mileage and the dirt melts out from under the snow here in Wyoming. RESULTS