Salt Lake City Marathon
Salt Lake City, Utah
Saturday, April 19, 2008

Saturday, April 19, 2008 started off as a good day to race walk the Salt Lake City Marathon. The temperature was around 50 degrees with a little breeze. The course was mostly downhill with one steep one tenth of a mile uphill near mile seven and had approximately 600 feet of elevation loss. The race began as the sun was coming up at 7:00 AM and the view of the snow covered mountains was spectacular. However, by mile 5 the conditions began to change as an approaching cold front brought strong gusty winds. In fact, gusts in Salt Lake City reached 49 miles per hour with surrounding communities experiencing gust as high as 65 mile per hour according to the evening news. Thus, from mile 7 to mile 13 even though the course was going down, it was very hard to progress forward. The last 13 miles had the wind from behind and the side which because of the gustiness made balance difficult. By mile 15 the wind had created a dust storm that made breathing more difficult and obliterated the view of the mountains.
The volunteers and police did an excellent job of maintaining the water stations and controlling the traffic. There also were enthusiastic spectators throughout the route. Overall I enjoyed myself.