I'm not quite sure why I keep booking these early morning flights out of LAX, but I got up very early and timed my drive to arrive at the LAX Economy Parking structure at about 4 am. Once I found a suitable EV parking spot, I grabbed my bags and headed over to wait for a shuttle ride to terminal 1.
LAX Economy Parking
In all of the years that I've flown with Southwest Airlines, I don't think that I've ever flown out of gate 9. There was a walkway up to its own special waiting area. Thankfully, this area also had its own restrooms. One drawback was that it was away from all of the stores and restaurants.
LAX Terminal 1
Ramp to gate 9
Ginger ale
It was a short flight over to Salt Lake City Airport. With the 1 hour time change, the plane landed a few minutes after 9 am local time. After I had gotten off of the plane and used the restroom, I headed outside to the designated curbside for my friend to come pick me up. When he found out that I was also running this race, he insisted that I just share rental cars with him to save money. While waiting, I noticed that a lot of little birds came up close to me looking for food crumbs. They were definitely not fearful of humans.
SLC Airport
Designated curbside pick-up area
Tiny bird looking for crumbs
Lots of tiny birds
From there, we drove over to the Salt Palace Convention Center to pick up our race packets. Per the emailed instructions, we were told to park at the City Creek Center as parking was free for the first 2 hours. My friend was a bit directionally challenged, so I had to be his navigator. Per the usual, the whole packet pick-up process was well streamlined.
City Creek Center
Salt Palace Convention Center
Race expo
Bib pick-up
Expo stuff
Event timeline
Race shirt
Back of race shirt
Deep Blue
Guest speakers
Participants name banner
Found my name
Yakult sample
After we picked up our race packet and I had entered all of the special vendor codes into the mobile app, we headed back to the car. We drove south on the freeway with both of us staying at hotels that were relatively close to each other. Since neither of us were hungry yet, we stopped in at the Walmart in South Jordan to buy some snacks and drinks for the weekend. I bought my usual grape Powerade, a gallon of water, and a bag of Siete grain free tortilla chips.
Walmart
For brunch, we went to Sunday's Best in Sandy. Nearby parking was kind of scarce, but we circled the block and ended up parking near Subway. Just from looking at their menu, I must say that my friend and I were not their target demographic. However, they did have a pretty nice steak & eggs plate. I got that with an Americano. While they weren't giving out refills on the Americano, the waitress was nice enough to refill it with regular drip coffee.
Menu
Americano
Steak & eggs
Brunch me hard
After we paid our bill, my friend dropped me off at my hotel, the Ramada over in Draper. I was a little over an hour ahead of the check-in time, but thankfully, they had a room ready for me. I was assigned to room #121. It wasn't a very fancy Ramada, but it was definitely adequate for a short 2 night stay.
Ramada Draper
I went through my race packet, laid out my flat runner, relaxed a bit, and eventually took a nap. I got up at about 5 pm to go get dinner. I walked over to the nearby In-n-Out. I ordered my usual, 2 Double Doubles with raw onions and a Neapolitan shake. Unfortunately, for some reason, the girl that took my order put in grilled onions. I never want my onions grilled! Oh well, it wasn't enough for me to cause a stink, so I ate it as is.
Flat runner
In-n-Out
Double Double x2 and Neapolitan shake
Saturday 9/13
I woke up super early to get ready for the race. Although we had agreed on 3:30 am for my friend to come pick me up, he showed up about 10 minutes early. Good thing I was pretty much ready. Honestly, I'm not used to people being this punctual. It was a breath of fresh air. We drove over to Murray High School where the marathon buses were scheduled to be loaded from 4 - 5 am. We arrived at about 3:45 am and we weren't the first ones there. My friend and I boarded one of the nicer motorcoaches after using one of the nearby portapotties. The buses didn't leave until the bus was full. The drive up to the starting area at Guardsmans Pass Overlook took over an hour.
Early morning bus ride
Once we were let off of the bus, I used a portapotty before finding a spot in the back near the gear check truck to hunker down and wait. When it neared 6:30 am, we started shedding our layers and got ready to check our gear bags. Then we started moving towards the starting line. Recently, I had been feeling something in my right plantar fascia, so I wasn't going to push my way closer to the front. I hung back a bit to use a portapotty one last time. The race started at 6:45 am. I didn't cross the start line until 6:49 am.
Xiao
Albert
Heather
Albert and Xiao
Here we go!
I started the race running at a very comfortable pace. My plan was to get through the first half feeling as comfortable as possible and not let the heart rate venture into the high 140s. Then from there, try and stretch that out to mile 20. At about mile 3, I came up to a decent climb at the Brighton Loop. I didn't bother running up that climb, so I pulled over for a walk break. Once I got through that section, it was back to being all downhill. I covered the first half in about 2:03.
About 3 miles in
The next 5 miles or so were some of my faster miles as the elevation drop increased to about 200 - 300 feet per mile. At about mile 18, the course veered off into a parking lot before I got onto the Big Cottonwood Creek Trail. The course started to flattened out a bit as I hopped onto the Old Mill Bike Path at about mile 19. I was definitely slowing down, but I was still feeling okay. At about mile 20, the bike path became Holladay Blvd. I was definitely starting to struggle as any incline forced me to take a walk break. I was hoping to power through the last 10k, but instead it was a total grind! I was doing everything I could to make sure that my legs didn't cramped up! Pretty much all of the gravity-assisted downhill sections were behind me, so my miles continued to slow down. When I finally reached that tiny out and back onto Van Winkle to reach mile 25, I finally decided to run out the last mile or so. I totally forgot about the short little climb up 5600 S right before the final left turn into Cottonwood High School for the finish line. Thankfully, I had enough in my legs to cover that climb!
This couple was a hoot!
Holy smokes, it started to get warm!
Finish line
Finish: 4:22:25
Click here for my Garmin data.
I was definitely happy to have crossed another marathon finish line! The right plantar fascia didn't bother me. I just felt a bit out of shape. This was my 274th marathon and they do not get any easier even if it was a super downhill course! I received my finisher medal and got a finisher photo before continuing down the finisher chute. I got a wet towel, a bottle of water, Propel fitness water, PBfit protein bar, mini fruit bar, a banana, and a couple of chocolate milk.
Finished with medal
Finisher medal
Close up of finisher medal
Back of finisher medal
Once I had gotten out of the finisher chute, I met up with my faster friends and those that had run the half marathon. We got a quick selfie and chatted about our races before going our separate ways. I drank my chocolate milk before going over to get a printout of my results and to pick up one of those Creamies.
Post race goodies
I picked up my gear bag and was planning to hang out, relax near the final stretch while cheering on my fellow marathoners. Unfortunately, I received a text from my friend that I had carpooled with that he had dropped out of the race and was getting a ride to the finish line. I used a portapotty before heading over to the buses for a ride back to Murray High School to retrieve the rental car. Along the way, I bumped into my friend. I helped him get his gear bag and asked if he wanted to visit the medical tent. He declined and told me that he was going to find a shady spot to lay down and wait for me. During that bus ride, I chatted with a youngster that was attempting to run a sub 3 hour marathon for his first marathon. He didn't have a good second half, so he had missed his goal. Must be nice to be young. He was a bit stunned to hear how many that I've run. I definitely went down the route of quantity over quality. For some reason, the bus driver drove over to the half marathon parking spot. Everyone on the bus needed to go to the marathon parking spot. When I finally got to the car, I drove it back to the finish line. I had to park in the lot south of the finish line as the closer lot was blocked off for the buses. I found my friend taking a nap underneath a tree. I was actually quite relieved when he awoke after I nudged him. We then walked back to the car and drove over to my hotel. Per the usual, it took me a long while before I jumped into the shower to get cleaned up.
For dinner, my friend insisted that he would swing by to pick me up. I was just going to walk over to In-n-Out again. We first drove over to OAK Wood Fire Kitchen as my friend didn't want fast food or something simple like In-n-Out. Unfortunately, this place was pretty busy. After waiting for about 30 minutes, we took our name off of the wait list and headed out for some place else. My friend agreed to eating at Black Bear Diner. For some odd reason, he was opposed to Cracker Barrel, but was okay with Black Bear Diner. They pretty much served the same type of food except here they had bears. Finally, this was my first time checking out a Black Bear Diner. I had seen a few back closer to home. Their menu was in the form of a newspaper. I ordered their New York Steak & Eggs with grits and sourdough toast. The menu said that it was a USDA Choice Meats by Linz steak. Can't say that I've heard of that particular brand, but it was good. I got coffee to go with my meal. As a Cracker Barrel fan, I must say that this place was better.
Black Bear Diner
Menu
Coffee
Steak & eggs
Sunday 9/14
Even though my flight home wasn't until 11:15 am, I got ready and waited for my friend to pick me up at 5:30 am. That was enough time for us to return the rental car and for him to catch his early flight home. Although I didn't mind waiting about 5 hours for my flight, next time I think I will just rent my own car so I would have more control of my time. I finished my water before going through TSA security screening. I dozed off a couple of times while waiting at the gate for my flight. When I finally boarded the plane, I was able to catch up on the news while using the free inflight live TV stream.
Waiting for my flight
Love these pretzel sticks!
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