A brand new marathon opened up, called the High Uintas Marathon. It starts up Mirror Lake Highway and runs all the way to Kamas. It's a beautiful course, a very gentle downhill, and a Boston qualifier. He spent almost every weeknight after work and every Saturday morning training for this race. He wanted to be good. He wanted to place! 2 days before the race, they sent out an email saying the race was cancelled! Apparently they didn't get the right permits at the right times or something like that. The refund was already on it's way, but that still left a very disappointed Bevan! I immediately started looking online for another race that was still open. I found one on the exact day as the last, in Park City: the Mid-Mountain Marathon! Oooh, I had heard about that one! It's trails the whole way through 3 resorts. Lots of up and down, but how hard could it really be?
Saturday morning we dropped him off at Silver Lake with about 300 runners (That's it? Why don't more people do this?!) I convinced Mom and Dad to come cheer him on at the finish line with us. We got their early, and waited and waited. I knew he wouldn't come through at his anticipated 3 hours even (for a downhill road race), but I would be grateful if he finished in once piece! People were coming through with all sorts of scrapes, blood, and bruises. Bevan did not run trails! Thankfully he made it around 4 hours 22 minutes, and he was alive! He did awesome! He did say it was "brutal" and "will NEVER run that one again", but I've heard that before. What an amazing experience! Trail running is hard and I'm glad he was able to try that at least once. Bring on Boston!
