Utah Valley Marathon Results

My second marathon pacing experience was the Utah Valley Marathon. The combination of pacing at Provo City and the fact that I've ran Utah Valley twice before made me feel 100% confident going into this race. I opted to stick with the 5:00 group again--I want to pace another marathon or two before I start moving my way up the time spots.

Mile 18. Still loving the journey!

I must admit I had a less than stellar experience at Utah Valley last year, which is one of the motivators behind running it again this year. This year was a perfect race! The weather held up, I had an amazing group of experienced and newbie marathoners stick with me, and I felt strong the whole 26 miles. 

The Utah Valley Marathon made a slight tweak to the last 6 miles of the course. Now when runners enter Provo, the route follows the east side of University Avenue instead of the west side. It's amazing what a difference such a small change can make! This provided quite a bit more shade when the temps started to become uncomfortably warm. A+ for the change, Utah Valley!

Rocking my Utah Race Pacers gear

I finished with an overall time of 4:59:03. About a quarter mile out, I saw I was going to be a bit early, but truth be told, I was ready at that point to call it good. Five hours is a long time to be running in the sun! Though I could have been a little closer to that five-hour mark, I'm incredibly happy with this year's event. I can tell marathons are becoming much less physically and mentally taxing, and dare I say pounding out 26.2 miles is almost becoming easy?!

I look forward to running the 2014 Utah Valley Marathon as either a racer or pacer!