Jarom's Running Page: Mid Mountain Marathon

Me and two friends had a great race this last weekend up in the beautiful mountains of Park City, Utah for the running of the 3rd Annual Mid Mountain Marathon. This 26.2 mile course runs through the mountains of Deer Valley Ski Resort, Park City Ski Resort and finally finishes at The Canyons Ski Resort.

Marcee was coming off her win and course record at Katcina Mosa 100km and wanted to "Run her guts out" and try and place in the top 5 women's division...which she DID!!!

I ran with Marcee for the first 4 miles and then watched her increase the gap as she passed several runners in front of us. By mile 10 my stomach wasn't feeling well and my right hamstring muscle was hurting a little...so I slowed to a comfortable pace until my friend Rob caught up to me around mile 12.

(Course Map)

I ran the first half in 2:01:00 and yet somehow managed to pull off a 2:04:00 second half which was a great accomplishment for me. I've been focusing my training on maintaining a very consistant pace no matter what the distance I'm running.

Rob took a small lead until mile 20 when we had just the last little bit of the 5 mile uphill section of the course. Then we ran together on to about mile 24 when Rob's leg started to cramp up. He managed to stay right on my tail and only fell back to about a quarter of a mile behind me.

Marcee was in 2nd place in the women's field for the first 15 miles, then held 3rd place through mile 20....and finished 4th place overall with an impressive time 4:01:35. (There were 67 women who finished the marathon.)

I came in just four minutes behind Marcee's dust with a time of 4:05:46, taking 28th overall in the men's division out of 116 male finishers. (I improved my time from last year's race by 14 minutes.)

Rob tailed me the last 6 miles but had cramps in his leg which slowed him down in the last two miles to finish two minutes behind me with a time of 4:07:35 and 30th overall in the men's division.