Journeys: Pocatello, Idaho - Marathon

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Pocatello, Idaho - Marathon

Jake and I ran the Pocatello Marathon in Idaho over Labor Day weekend. I've had an excellent summer of running, including some good long runs and quite a bit of hill work, so I felt fairly confident going into this race that it was going to be a good one. After enduring the now familiar routine of waking up ridiculously early and eating weird food for breakfast, we boarded the bus on Saturday morning to be shuttled to the start line. We started down the canyon just as the sun began to rise. There were very few spectators and not a lot of runners, making it feel like one of my solo long runs instead of an actual race. It was so relaxing that it was a little difficult to stay on pace and focus on running at 100%.

I felt sluggish and stiff for the first several miles, but eventually I settled into a comfortable pace as the course made it's way through the canyon towards Pocatello. The course met up with the half-marathoners who began about two hours after us, and suddenly there were a lot more people and much more energy in the air. It was one of those running days where everything works out - perfect running temperatures, a good course, and good preparation. I never felt like I hit "the wall" and I still felt strong during the last few miles. I crossed the finish line in 3:45 .. a personal best by about 12 minutes.

Nearing the 20 mile mark

26.2 miles later

Shawn met up with us after the race and I treated myself to an entire pizza and several pints of delicious beer at the Portneuf Valley Brewery. We wandered around Pocatello for a bit and then headed off to Big Springs campground near Lava Hot Springs for a couple days of recovery and relaxation.

Pocatello, Idaho

Big Springs campground

"One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am – a reluctant enthusiast….a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards"

-- Edward Abbey

"The grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never dried all at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls. "

-- John Muir

"To be whole. To be complete. Wildness reminds us what it means to be human, what we are connected to rather than what we are separate from."

-- Terry Tempest Williams

"There may be people who feel no need for nature. They are fortunate, perhaps. But for those of us who feel otherwise, who feel something is missing unless we can hike across land disturbed only by our footsteps or see creatures roaming freely as they have always done, we are sure there should be wilderness. Species other than man have rights, too. Having finished all the requisites of our proud, materialistic civilization, our neon-lit society, does nature, which is the basis for our existence, have the right to live on? Do we have enough reverence for life to concede to wilderness this right?"

-- Margaret E. Murie

"I have always been unsatisfied with life as most people live it. Always I want to live more intensely and richly. Why muck and conceal one's true longings and loves, when by speaking of them one might find someone to understand them, and by acting on them one might discover oneself?"

-- Everett Ruess