Back to Back Marathons & Connor's first marathon

January 1st is a time to reflect on the past year and set goals for the new year. This year my son Connor announced that he was setting a goal to run a marathon. Connor is only 12 and I explained to him the amount of time and effort it would take for him to train to run a marathon. His mind was already made up and he was going to do it.

We looked through the race calendar to find a marathon that would be good for him. The Bear Lake marathon was in June, 22 weeks away. It is a relatively flat course which would be perfect for him. I put together a 22 week training schedule for him to follow based on may past experience.

One of the neat thing about the Bear Lake marathon is that they actually offer two marathons. One on Friday and one on Saturday. The Friday race is on the Idaho side of the lake and the Saturday race is on the Utah side of the lake. Both of them are official races complete with timing chips, aid stations, and awards. In past years, several runners have ran both races back to back. I decided that I was going to do both races. The first one by myself and the second one with Connor.

For the first few months Connor did a great job following the training plan. Towards the end of the training, he slacked off, but we still got in some good long runs. Training in Bountiful is great because there are lots of hills. I figured if he could run good on the hills, he would to great on the flats. On our last long training run we summitted Centerville Canyon Flag Rock and Farmington Flag Rock. It was 18 miles and 3600 ft of elevation gain. That's six times more elevation than we would encounter during the marathon.

We rented a condo for the week in Garden City. It was a fun and relaxing vacation before the races. We had time to drive both courses and check everything out.

The Friday race started at Bear Lake Hot Springs on the Northeast end of the lake. There were 57 runners in the race. Most of them were not from Utah or Idaho and were planning on running both races. They also had a half marathon on Friday and there were a few people running half marathons back to back.

Start of first race. I am on the right in yellow.

At 7:00 a.m. we headed out. I was running an 8:30 per mile pace and before long I was in third place. I maintained that pace and held my position for the first 12 miles. At the point, I reminded myself that I would be running another marathon the next day and needed to have some energy left. I change my focus from racing to treating it like I was running an ultra. I ran the next five miles at a 10 min/mile pace. From there to the finish it was very hot. The sun was out and there was zero shade. The heat seemed to take a toll on me and I had to walk a few times in the last few miles. I finished in just over 4:30 which was something like 9th place. I was sore but felt like I would still be able to run the next day.

 About the Twinkies shirts. I have been wearing a Twinkies shirt in all my races ever since I ran my first marathon in 1999. My first shirt got faded and worn out, so I replaced it with a new one (the yellow one). Connor wanted to run in a Twinkies shirt too. So we searched the web to see what we could find. It turns out that back in 2003 that Hostess sponsored a bicycling team in the UK. More surprising than that, we were able to find the shirts in both our sizes on ebay and nabbed them up.




I woke up feeling pretty sore on Saturday morning. This is to be expected as I had just ran a marathon the day before. I have run lots of training runs the day after a hard run the day before, so I was not too worried. Connor was  a little nervous, but probably more excited than nervous. The Saturday race was a little bigger than the race the day before, but still only had 86 runners. Connor was the youngest racer by a ways. The next youngest was 18. We started out at a 10:30 min/mile pace. The first three miles hurt for me, but after that my body relaxed and I felt great for the rest of the race. Connor did a great job of staying on pace and being quick through aid stations. We ran for the first 9 miles, then Connor announced that he needed to walk. We walked for about a half mile, then I talked him into running again. This would be the pattern for the rest of the race. Connor never complained. I could tell that he was tired and in pain, but he never said he wanted to quit and just kept moving. The weather on Saturday was much cooler than Friday. It was overcast and stayed cool for the entire race.

At miles 23 my phone rang. It was my dad. He asks if we were still running and where we were at. I told him we were almost to Pickleville Playhouse. He said he was almost there too. This surprised me because he lives near Rexburg, Idaho and hadn't told us he was coming to the race. It was great to have him there and cheer us on. Connor was really struggling at that point and needed the extra push. When the finish line came within sight, Connor got excited. He has been working on his finish kick all year and still had a good kick left in him.

The final stretch

 We finished with a time of  5:40:38. I am very proud of Connor and the amazing job that he did. It was a great way to start Father's Day weekend.

Like Father, like Son.