The Little Grand Canyon Marathon – Somewhere in Utah — Note: Written on my Southwest Flight back to Orlando, 9/10/16
Huntington, UT, has two parks — a state park and a city park. I and another out-of-towner runner did not know this. We both separately and individually plugged the Huntington Park wording into google maps and found ourselves parked at the boat launch of the State Park at 5:30 am. There was no one else around but there did appear to be lights in the distance. We tried caravans get toward the light but couldn’t work out the roads that would take us there. Pulling off to the side of the road, we tried scrolling through the map on our phones but didn’t see much in the way of another entry point to the park. My co-lost finally found buried in one of the Mammoth Marathons emails the small little detail that we should be at the Huntington City Park on 10th and Center. Googling the intersection, we were ten minutes away.
It was dumb luck and happenstance that we talked to each other as we sat in our cars in the State Park and resolved to go in search of others. We made it to the buses in time for their 6:15 departure to the start line… Which was all of two miles away, straight down Center Street.
Before boarding though, I snapped a photo with Sarah to commemorate our victory at finding the starting line. I also snapped a shot of the night sky, the minimal light pollution affording a pretty good pic of Orion.
It was an oddly low-key start — television theme songs played through the night air, including Dave Letterman’s Late Show swing and the Peter Gunn bass line. They told us we’d be starting at 6:30 am. I must have misread the instructions a second time (the first being the park starting point) as I could’ve sworn they said there were 500 participants. Maybe it was 500 over the three distance events — the marathon, the half marathon, and the 10k. As it was, there couldn’t have been more than 60 of us standing before the “I Run Utah” orange arch.
We were told thirty seconds… And then a few moments later the announcer said he’d count us down — “3, 2, 1 – go!” It was like a kid speed counting for hide and seek. But we were off into the dawning light, our national anthem seemingly consisting of the aforementioned tv soundtracks.
The course itself is exceedingly difficult to do justice to via photographs. I do think I captured the loneliness of the experience. I tried to keep up with the the top three runners but quickly fell behind in the opening miles, watching them disappear over the horizon. Behind me were runners to be sure, albeit none that I could see when I would cast a glance back.
Every two miles as an aid station, often manned by middle school kids. I never did anything like that as a kid and it was a nice thing to see… Albeit at that point, seeing ANYONE that confirmed I was on the course was reassuring.
Running through the rock formations, looming several stories tall, the sun peeking around and over gaps, it was an impressive thing.
Somewhere in the teens I caught up to the slower half-marathoners and tried to snap a shot of scale and perspective, capturing the tiny runner on the road amidst the giant rock structures that surrounded us.
And then around mile 20 I caught up with the third place marathoner. There’s a thrill to catching someone — I’m not usually competitive and often find myself struggling just to finish against my own set goals. But this was an opportunity to pass somebody and secure a “podium” spot in the top three. I fist bumped the guy and told him to keep going.
Along this road I also passed the Buckhorn Wash Pictographs, drawings that date back over 2000 years. What a thing to know I was running where eons ago dinosaurs had roamed. What a perhaps even greater thing to see that obviously much later early human tribes had clearly been here and left their marks. Time is a carousel and we ride along until the music stops so that others may have a turn.
By mile 25, I spotted the number 2 marathoner and was inexplicably able to pass him. His leg was bothering him and nobody likes to see that, but selfishly I did experience that rush one gets in passing and moving up in position. Racing and the notion of running against others has that inherent competitive juice and drama… And here I was getting the chance to live my own little running drama.
I finished with a 3:31-ish time and an “unofficial” second place. The winner did a sub 3 race and there was no way I was ever going to catch him. They’d finalize the results later and send me an award if my time held (which there’s no reason to doubt it wouldn’t). They didn’t have the awards with them anyway so the race director assured me she’d mail them out.
I needed to board the shuttle bus back to my car as I had a flight to catch out of Salt Lake City. Unbeknownst to me (or perhaps it was in the fine print of the emails that outlined the City Park and registration stats), it would be a 50 minute bus ride back to the City Park, driving us back over the course we had just run. We could cheer on runners still on the road as we gently rolled past, the driver doing her best to minimize dust kick-up.
Riding along, seeing where I’d just been on foot, I was again stuck by the natural beauty and mostly soul-affirming (but occasionally lonely) isolation of the place.
Others have run here, including velociraptors and Utah’s own “Al”, the Allosaurus that’s apparently on display in the Pre-Historic Museum I missed visiting yesterday. Tomorrow, someone else will run here.
But today, I ran the Little Grand Canyon in Utah… And I’m glad I did.