Ginger Ries said it promptly.
“Mother nature gave us a perfect fall day,” she said.
No kidding.
The sixth-annual Mid-Mountain Marathon was held on what turned out to be a crisp autumn Saturday morning amongst changing leaves and pristine mountain trails.
Ries, a race organizer, saw her first year working on the event as a tremendous success. The marathon drew 352 racers, up from about 250 from the year before.
“It went just great,” Ries said. “We’ve had some wonderful feedback already.”
The 26.2 mile course that began from the Silver Lake Lodge at Deer Valley Resort snaked its way up Guardsman Pass Road, over to Park City Mountain Resort and onto the Iron Mountain trail for the first 13.3 miles. Afterward, the single-track trail made its way toward The Colony, and eventually finished at the Canyons.
Ries, along with many race participants mentioned that mountain trail marathons are much more enjoyable thanks to the surrounding scenic beauty and overall atmosphere of the event.
“You get out of the traffic, off the pavement,” Ries said. “It brings you into such a beautiful environment.”
Race winner B.J. Christenson couldn’t have agreed more.
The 32-year-old Salt Lake City resident, who finished with a race-best two hours, 56 minutes and 21 seconds, was in awe of the course’s beauty.
“It was pretty challenging, but gorgeous,” Christenson said. “What a great, great venue. I couldn’t have asked for a better day. The temperature was perfect. The trails are just gorgeous.”
Christenson, a triathlete, participated in his first Mid-Mountain Marathon as a service to himself in preparation for one of the World’s most grueling endurance events. Christenson is a three-time participant in the Ironman Triathlon Championship, which is held annually in Hawaii.
He mentioned how a race like this is like killing two birds with one stone as he can adequately prepare for the Ironman event, while still enjoying his time on the intact Park City trails.
“It’s nice because it’s supported and I don’t have to carry as much gear with me and this trail tends not to beat the legs up as much, even though I’m hurting,” Christenson said. “Having to push the pace more and be in a competitive environment is great.”
An enjoyable, competitive environment is exactly what Ries and her cohorts have in mind each year the marathon takes place. Whether the race will increase in size, though, is another story.
“The amount of runners we had this year was good and manageable,” Ries said. “If we were to increase, we might have to see possible impacts. We want to have a quality event and quality race without compromising our runners and event.
“This year was a baby step,” she added.
Park City’s own Mickey Wilson, who took third overall at this year’s race has been training for the Chicago Marathon and expects it to be a cakewalk compared to the up-and-down mountain trails of this event.
“Chicago’s going to be a cinch compared to this,” Wilson said. “With this, it’s like you can’t pace yourself because of the hills. You either get going too fast up a hill or too slow going down. It’s really tricky to be able to keep a good pace.”
Wilson improved his time in his second-consecutive Mid-Mountain Marathon from the year before and admitted he could feel the aftereffects.
“It was pretty brutal,” Wilson said. “I think I started pretty fast and tried to keep up with the front group of guys. I just hit the wall at the seventeenth mile. I was just hanging on from there. I can’t even feel my legs.”
Wilson said there were only a handful of mile markers available to the runners during the race, and he felt like not seeing constant reminders of how far he’d gone helped him muster through the pain.
“You don’t know where the hell you’re at in the race,” Wilson said. “They had about only four mile markers, so it got to the point where I was just going and saying: just keep running.”
All three ski resorts helped to sponsor the event, along with the likes of Powerade, Backcountry.com, Rossignol and Camelbak, and while Ries says she was pleased with the overall result, her biggest smile came from knowing where the all the money from the race is headed.
“This race ultimately a fundraiser for Mountain Trails and maintaining our trail systems,” Ries said.
As for Wilson, being completely exhausted was actually worthy of a fitting summation.
“It is nice when you’re done,” he said chuckling.