34/50 - St. George Marathon

After all, this is Utah

I love the state of Utah. There is something different, almost otherworldly, about it that sets it apart from others: the red sandstone arch formations, colorful gorges & canyons, the Great Salk Lake, the Mormon religion... In & Out Burger. All of it fascinates me.

Our story begins after a flight into Las Vegas, lunch at In & Out Burger, and a 2-hour drive to St. George, UT the day before the race. The St. George Marathon is held on a Saturday - as are many races in Utah - for reasons I can only assume have to do with the followers of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) and their more disciplined observance of the Sabbath.

After the expo, we toured the winter home of Brigham Young - founder of Salt Lake City and 2nd president (after Joseph Smith) of LDS. Brigham Young was responsible for relocating the church from Illinois to Utah after Joseph Smith was killed by an angry Illinois mob. Just imagine, Illinois could have been the land of Mormonism! Nothing makes you feel like an outsider more than refusing a free copy of the Book of Mormon from the Elder (who claimed to have done mission work in Libertyville, IL) facilitating the tour. Instead, I asked to see the golden plates. He wasn't so accommodating after that.

Brigham Young's winter home, now a place for the LDS hard sell

St. George is not a party town on a Friday night. We opted for a good night's sleep since we had an early morning bus ride to the start. Similar to the bus debacle at the 2015 Revel Rockies Colorado marathon that Michael (who, along with Cheryl, joined me for this marathon) and I attempted, getting to the start looked to be questionable when we arrived to load the buses at 5am.

In hindsight, we should have known better given that they were incentivizing runners with some great raffle prizes if you loaded the buses between 4-4:15am. So here we are with about 6,000 of the 7,500 participants standing in unorganized chaos hoping for more buses to arrive. In the end, they did arrive and the race was delayed by only 8 minutes. We were on one of the last buses.

Michael and I started off conservatively. In true fashion however, I didn't really look at the map until the day before. This fast, downhill course also has quite a bit of long uphill. We were introduced to that at mile 7 at which point Michael turns to me and asks, "are you ok?" Shortly afterward I see that obnoxiously bright yellow/green Libertyville Running Cult shirt he is wearing fade into the distance.

I was just not feeling it. I decided early to run this smart and secure another sub-3 hour state. I have two more marathons in the next month and just ran one three weeks ago. I successfully ran nearly even splits - 1:27:30 for the first half and 1:27:36 in the second half. Michael on the other hand had the race I knew he was capable of since I first met him two years ago, 2:45:56 - a 5-minute PR! Incredible. I think he fully recovered and ate lunch by the time I finished.

Flashing The Stehling

Swimming at the hotel pool in those short hot pink shorts will turn a few heads, even more so in Utah. Afterward, we cleaned up at the hotel and staked out a spot at the finish line to see Cheryl finish. It was approaching 80 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. Cheryl, Michael, and I all had a great race. The course showcases a beautiful display of mountains and canyons, farms and small towns along a mostly downhill highway. The field of runners is FAST and largely Utah residents. These folks are fit; no surprise given the playground they have to train on.

A best-places-to-eat list of St. George doesn't run too deep so we opted for the best for a celebratory lunch at The Painted Pony before a short drive to Zion National Park to hike the splendid canyon country.

Vantage from the Emerald Pools hike in Zion National Park

Before driving back to Las Vegas Sunday morning, we walked to the LDS temple then enjoyed coffee on top of some cliffs within the Red Cliffs Desert Reserve for sweeping views of St. George. This is a great way to start or end a trip to this area and clearly a popular spot.

The Temple... Of doom?

The Libertyville Running Cult does Utah

There was one recommendation from the 2015 Las Vegas marathon I didn't make it to that we could now remedy before our flight: Frank's Tiki Room. This old school tiki room located off-strip is housed in a dark room with Polynesian-punk kitsch everywhere. Naturally, we bought mugs to commemorate this successful trip.

How can you not want one of these to take home?

Finishing with a cartwheel