My Marathon Journeys: St. George 1990

A goal is a tenuous journey.  I had career goals.  I had running goals.  I unfortunately didn't have any life goals.  1990 was a journey in which I completed my main running goal of breaking 2:40 at St. George but realized that if I didn't start having some life goals, my professional life and personal life were going to not go the way I wanted.

By the beginning of 1990 I was tired of living in Phoenix, Arizona.  The unrelenting heat and unending brown of the desert was more than I could handle.  I didn't like my job.  It had been promised to be one thing and it became something entirely different without the pay to justify the workload I had been handed and with a boss who ridiculed me in front of my peers.

My old boss in Kansas City wanted me back.  So with some phone diplomacy and some back channel manipulation my Phoenix boss reluctantly agreed to let me go back to Kansas City.  He was reluctant because despite everything I was producing the number one 10 p.m. newscast and thus making a lot of money for the station.

I turned in my resignation on March 19, 1990.  I was training and racing during the first part of 1990 but the results were less than satisfying.  The week after my resignation with a lot of professional pressure off I ran 107 miles.  I hadn't run that many miles in a week since my junior year in high school.  I was thinking ahead to October and St. George.

I ran my next to last race in Phoenix that same week.  The South Mountain YMCA Half Marathon told me that I could run a sub 2:40 marathon.  I ran 1:22:38.  It wasn't anywhere near my personal best but I did it on tired legs and never felt truly stressed in doing it.  

Two weeks later I was back in Kansas City running 21 miles almost every Sunday with my old buddies.  I kept the mileage steady at 60 to 70 miles a week until I raced myself into a nasty cold in mid-May.  It forced me to curtail my training as I headed toward a major early June race.

I ran the Hospital Hill Half Marathon on June 3 hoping to break 1:20 on one of the toughest courses in the nation.  I couldn't take advantage of the downhills and ran 1:20:41.   I finished, took two deep breaths and instantly realized I could run the course again right then and there at the same effort.  The power of the long runs was kicking in.

The last push of serious training didn't begin until the end of August with an 82 mile week.  It was followed with a 94 mile week and a 108 mile week.  That third week culminated in a 26 mile long run in under three hours.

Two weeks later, one week out from the 1990 St. George Marathon, I ran an 8K PR 27:42 and drove to a local high school cross country meet where I won a two mile race about two hours after the 8K.  I was ready to go after St. George.  

The morning of the race the weather was crisp and cold.  The field was made up of more than 2,500 runners.  I was there with my old buddy from Phoenix, Craig Davidson.  I was ready to conquer the race and hoping to serve up a surprise for Craig.

To Craig Davidson, to whom I owe so much

The gun went off and so did Craig.  He shot away from me as I cautiously pattered through the first mile in 6:16.  I wanted to save myself for the big uphill at mile seven.  I hit seven miles in 42:35 and made the one mile climb in a little overly aggressive 6:27.  I paid a price over the next four miles as I recovered rolling through those miles at 6:25 pace.  

I went through the half marathon in 1:21:17 and I was waiting for the first big downhill.  I clocked mile 15 in 5:40 and followed that up with a 5:33.  It was during that 5:33 mile that I rolled by Craig with a wry smile on my face.  I had never beat him.  Craig had a 2:28 marathon to his credit.  He gave me an appreciative grin as I ran by him.  Something tells me he wasn't surprised by my fitness.

Mile 21 was my last fast mile in 5:35.  I was carefully checking myself.  I didn't want to crash and burn as I cruised those final downhill miles.  I knew I had a chance to crack 2:39 as I clocked my 24th mile in 5:58 but I was beginning to feel the effort.  I deliberately backed off running 6:10 miles over the last two.

I hit the finish line in 2:39:24.  It was a personal best by nine minutes.  I was exhausted, coughing up all manner of crud.  I had even managed to score an age group award, something that came as an unexpected bonus to the PR.

It never occurred to me at that point that I needed to set a new running goal.  I was 34 years old.  I didn't think I had the desire to work hard enough to break 2:35.

I was satisfied.  My time placed me in the top 50 and I won an age group award.  I did wonder if I had run more miles in June and July if I could have run a couple of minutes faster.  But what I did got me to where I wanted to be.  

A lot of people will criticize the St. George course because it is so downhill.  But those runners never take into account the difficult hills from mile seven to mile 13 or the pounding your quads take running downhill.  Training for that race by running up and down South Mountain when I lived in Phoenix resulted in surgery to both my achilles in my 25 years later.

Three weeks later on almost no training I ran a 35:25 10K on a super hilly course where marathon legend Dick Beardsley kicked me down for 55th place.  Unfortunately my motivation to continue training was gone.  It would remain buried for nearly a year as I dealt with trying to set my personal life in order and capture a seemingly impossible professional goal.