Montana Marathon

Very nice to get away last week, and run the Montana Marathon, and then visit Little Big Horn and Yellowstone. Great road trip, where we probably put nearly 2000 miles on our rental car (a sporty Dodge Charger), and drove through Washington, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. 

The initial focus was getting out to Billings, Montana, to run the Montana Marathon, one of the few events actually taking place this year, due to COVID.  The event took many precautions, both for packet pickup, getting to the start line, and in the race. There were only a few more thna 200 runners in the full marathon, and the event felt safer to me than visiting a grocery store. I wouldn't say it was risk-free, but I don't want to catch COVID, and so I did everything to minimize risk vectors in each moment. I noted that some runners showed more concern than others, but the organizers seemed to exercise due diligence in each phase.

For packet pickup, they spread things out in a gym, required masks, and only allowed race participants in the gym. This was a point to point race, and so racers had the option of getting themselves to the start line, or taking a bus. They doubled the normal number of busses, and required only one person per seat, with maks, and left the windows open. Participants were assigned a bus by letter (e.g. you're on bus F), and then use of portapotties at the start line were linked to bus number, for contact tracing, if necessary. I suppose a loop course would've been better for COVID, but I really liked the point to point. I haven't heard reports of COVID since, for whatever that's worth.

The race start was staggered in waves of about 30 per wave start. Aid stations had some precautions, though I kept my distance just the same, as much as possible. I liked that the race took on the challenge, and I liked having a race to go to. As time goes on, it gets harder to live cloistered away.

The race itself was one of my favorite road marathons ever. I like a small event. The race starts way out in the Montana prairie in a little burg called Molt. You basically have to run back to Billings, and the first half of the race is pure prairie league stuff. Beautiful. Caught the sunrise in the middle of nowhere. The race is at a little bit of altitude--I think in the 3ks. At about 11 miles in, the race comes around a curve, and you can see for miles and miles and miles, down into the valley which is Billings. The second half of the course then has a whole lot of downhill for a road marathon. Eventually you wind through the neighborhoods of Billings and finish downtown, by Pioneer Park.

I was doing pretty good for me for the first 18 miles, on about a 4:30 pace and without too much effort. However, things fell apart from there, and I had to walk things in for the last few miles. Not sure if it was the sun, which came on towards the end; or the moderate level smoke, which has been a problem; or just plain not being ready for the downhill. My hips and quads did hurt this week. Whatever, I was happy to be out there, and I thoroughly enjoyed the event. I think this was my 17th year in a row of doing a marathon distance race. I would go back to this one, for sure.

Many thanks to the sponsors and especially the good people at the Billings YMCA. Great job.