My New Goal - Quadruple St. George Marathon!

Last year I set a goal to run a 100 miler per month for a year. I wanted to run a quadruple St. George Marathon for my October 100 miler but just couldn't pull off the logistics. Ever since then I have worked toward achieving this goal. And suddenly I'm only four days away from taking a crack at a quadruple St. George Marathon! If I make it all 104.8 miles I'll be the first person to ever run a quadruple St. George Marathon.

I'll be honest. I'm nervous about this one. My legs are still feeling the toll of the Wasatch 100 a few weeks ago. They don't have much pep. They feel as fresh donuts that have been sitting in that plastic box next to the cash register at 7-Eleven for three days. (And speaking of donuts, they make a wonderful recovery food following the Wasatch 100! So do Butterfingers. And ice cream. And ibuprofen.)

My sweet wife has offered to crew for the first part of this adventure. I have begged her not to because I think this would be more boring than reading updates to the the tax code. But she says it's fun. I'm not asking a lot of her while crewing. As long as I have a constant, never-ending flow of pina colada Slurpees I should be good to go. (This is a picture of Mel and Jackson crewing at Wasatch.)

There are two reasons I have requested a steady IV drip of Slurpees:

1) Slurpees are delicious and science has proven that they will be the beverage of choice in heaven; and:

2) The forecast for Friday and Saturday is unseasonably hot, nearing 100 degrees. Slurpees, ice, and anything else that is cold will be crucial.

I feel so connected with the St. George Marathon. It holds special meaning for me because it was my first marathon six years ago. If you had told me at that time what the next six years would look like, I would have slapped you for lying to me. My daughter Kylee surprised me wearing this shirt when I crossed the finish line six years ago.

My plan is to start running at the finish line Friday morning, run up the course to the start line, turn around and run back, then run up to the start line again and hopefully get there Saturday morning with enough time to start the race with the rest of the runners.

The last marathon is going to be an enormous challenge because of the cutoffs, and the fact that I will already have 78.6 miles on my legs. To finish under the cutoff I need to keep a 16:13 per mile pace. One may argue that 16:13/mile is downright pedestrian. But I assure you that having already covered that many miles while in the middle of a rotisserie oven, 16:13 becomes more like a sprint. I'm going to give it a shot. The only way to find out if you can do something is to try!

I'm incredibly thankful for my sponsors St. George Running Center, Altra, Tailwind Nutrition, UltrAspire, and Ultra Adventures. I feel so blessed to work with such amazing people at such amazing companies.

Again - I make no warranties on this run. Finishing the 104.8 miles with high temps and rusty Wasatch legs is going to be difficult, but I'm going to give everything I've got. If you're interested, Mel will probably post occasional updates on my Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/cory.reese.10

Finally, if you're running the race and see me out running, stop and say hello, throw me a high five, and if necessary, tell me to stop sucking my thumb on the side of the road while curled up in fetal position. Hope to see some of you out there!