Well, this is embarrassing...or at least enlightening. I was wondering what it would feel like for a 50 year old man to run the Utah Valley Marathon the week after running the Squaw Peak 50 Trail Run as his first ultra-marathon. Not too surprisingly, the answer is...not very good. I finished in the very slow time of 4:28:59. It started out okay, but that okay feeling only lasted about 6 miles. I guess that's about how much I had recovered from the 50 miler, because familiar feelings returned...sore heel, sore hip, sore left knee, tired feet. As the steady rain began, my pace slowed. My splits were: 8:02, 7:27, 7:45, 8:24, 8:49, 8:57, 10:37, 10:30, 9:30, 9:49, 10:38, 9:49, 9:35, 9:34, 11:43, 12:25, 12:20, 11:07, 11:01, 10:29, 11:16, 10:57, 10:37, 10:21, 8:14/mi at the end. The good news is I finished, but I couldn't have without help from my son Andrew and from Larry. I called Andrew and asked him to bring me a knee brace so I didn't over do it on my left knee. He met me at Bridal Veil Falls Park with two different braces. I crossed the highway and ended up putting one on each knee. They started to help almost immediately and I didn't worry about my knees for the remainder of the marathon. As I approached the mouth of Provo Canyon I met Larry on his bike. He road the last 7 or 8 miles in with me. His conversation kept me going. Those miles were hard. What am I saying, all the miles were hard, except maybe the first six. So my experiment this year is to see if a 50 year old man...specifically this 50 year old man...can run the Squaw Peak 50, the Utah Valley Marathon, and the Ragnar Relay on consecutive weekends and survive. Two down, one to go. After a very cold bath I actually feel much better. I'm optimistic.
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