July 15 2023

Mesa Falls Marathon

The race started at 5:30 am, which I was totally unaware of until 2 days before the race, shortly after our arrival into Ashton, Idaho. I missed an email that was sent the week before about packet pickup. The race director stated that they pushed the start time to 5:30 to avoid the heat. I had to chuckle, because I spent a majority of my training runs starting at 7 am in the middle of a North Texas summer with an average temp of 78 at that time. I was planning to wake up at that time, but instead had to set my alarm for a 3:30 am wake up call. It was a cool 50 degrees at the start of the race, something I had been monitoring with my weather app but had kinda forgotten what it actually felt like.

Brad dropped me off at the high school where there were buses that were ready to take the runners to the start of the race. I had my bagel, bar, and pre-race cocktail in my potato sack and tried to consume some of them as the bus took us up the mountain to the starting line, which was in the Targhee National Forest, an elevation of 6135 ft. The bus ride was dark, but upon getting dropped off and taking a quick bathroom break, the sunlight had seemed to pierce the night sky.

I had episodes of nervousness and anxiousness on the bus and then calmness. I felt like a rookie runner, although this was my 5th full marathon. It had been 11 years (Detroit Marathon in Oct 2012) since my last full (my life has been all about raising kids and building businesses recently), so some things like the nerves just tried hitting me like it was my first one. As soon as I got off the bus, that nervous tension dissipated. I was ready to race. I had spent time training and was ready for this. I recalled a text from a friend the night before, “Enjoy the run!! Have so much fun!!” and that is what I was going to do.

The clock started and I was off. We drove the Mesa Falls Scenic Byway the day before so I knew what I was going to encounter. The first 10 or so miles were in the Targhee National Forest. The race website warns of wildlife which we encountered in Yellowstone a few days before, and it was about at mile 6 that I heard in the distance what I was certain was a bear growling. This road was slightly downhill. When it was time for my first Gu, I opened my running belt to get it ready prior to the upcoming aid station and it hit the ground. Oh shit! I couldn’t lose one, especially so early in the race, so I quickly stopped and ran back a short distance to pick it up and then got back on track.

Around Mile 10 we got detoured to the Upper Mesa Falls and OH MY GOSH, was it absolutely breathtaking. I don’t stop in races, but this was worthy enough to stop and quickly grab my phone out of my belt and snap a few pictures and record a short video clip.

At mile 13, when I remember that there should have been a steep decline down the mountain, the race route was detoured again, through a metal tunnel and onto a dirt trail. During my training, I did a trail run with a local group and twisted my ankle and was left hobbling those last 2 miles off the trail. Ouch. My ankle was still not 100% and was feeling some ickiness in that left foot during the race. From that recent trail run, this one had me worried. I was not aware of the trail run beforehand, so mentally it was affecting me. Trail running is harder than road running, and I noticed the pace on my watch go upwards to 11:00 min/mile. On the right side of the trail was the mountain and the left side was the river. The sound of the river was easing my nerves as I just kept thinking of “how much I hated trail running”, and “how much longer was I to be on this trail”. Two runners passed me and I asked them that question. The girl encouragingly responded with “It’s until you get to the start of the climb, and you’re doing great!” I knew there was a steep hill at mile 17, from a race volunteer at packet pickup, so I was fully ready to tackle that hill, plus we did drive up it. But this 4 mile trail run was a complete curveball for me and threw off my mental game.

At mile 17 we bottom out at Warm River, where there are volunteers, spectators, and plenty of the half marathoners around. Time to push up that mountain. It was a steady climb. I did not stop once, I made sure to keep moving my legs the entire time for that almost 2 mile ascent. Then it was just rolling hills in the beautiful wide open fields to the finish line. Sounds refreshing, right after that tortuous incline, but it wasn’t exactly that.

I had begun to notice that not one but both of my IT bands had tightened up. Luckily I did not experience any sharp knee pain, like I typically get when my IT bands get too tight. So I was able to continue to push. I ran harder up those rolling hills and gave myself a recovery on the downhill. I was ready to be at the finish line. My watch distance was off (always is), and I hadn’t checked my Strava app since I started it at the beginning of the race, so I was trying to best gauge what I had left by the mile markers. Just past mile 21, I figured I had to finish in about 40 minutes if I wanted a BQ finish. Then at around mile 23, that time was about 24 minutes. I fought the idea in my head if I wanted to push even harder than I already was. My IT bands hurt, my feet were in and out of pain, could I get there? With about 2 miles to go, I had to finish the race in 15 minutes. I knew it likely wasn’t going to happen. I think my pace had slowed down these last few miles from the tight IT bands that it wasn’t going to be in the cards for me this race. I hit the 26 mile marker and was just on the other side of the fence from the finish line. I started running hard. I always save enough gas to sprint the last .2 across the finish line. I enter the track, and hear Brad shout out “Go Christina”.Turns out, he had just arrived and walked into the track area. I have a 300m sprint to finish this race. Boom! I cross that finish line! My official time was 3:43:46. If you don’t want to do the math, that’s an 8:32 min/mile pace. I was 3 minutes from a Boston qualifying time, but honestly I am not mad about it. If I can run a 3:43 in the mountains with my training consisting of one long run and some really short training runs with my dogs in the Texas summer than I am confident that I can do it the next time. I finished 21st overall, 6th female, and 2nd place AG.

This race was very scenic, well organized and helped me finally cross Idaho off my bucket list! It would also be my second favorite marathon, after the Boston Marathon of course!

For more info about the race that's been named "One of Idaho's Best Races by runners", check it out here.