Alvaro Palacios, a two-time Deseret News Marathon winner, had a simple plan going into the silver anniversary of the race - lead from start to finish.
It nearly worked.Palacios led for all but a few seconds through the first 21 miles of the race, but then he hit the wall, as they say.
Paul Rosser, a former star distance runner at BYU who was running his first Deseret News/Granite Furniture Marathon, proved to be much stronger down the stretch. Rosser won in the time of 2:27:46, three minutes ahead of the second-place Palacios (2:30:52).
"I was dehydrated. I totally ran out of gas and had to stop a couple of times," the 35-year-old Palacios said.
Rosser, meanwhile, didn't let up at all as he made his way through the parade route down Main Street and then on to the final slightly uphill blocks on 9th South that can be oh-so-painful.
"I'm just glad it's over," said Rosser, 29, who is $1,000 richer after the victory. "I'm glad I wore sunglasses, a hat and sunscreen, because it was hot there at the end."
Demetrio Cabanillas, who has won the Deseret News Marathon nine times, was forced to withdraw due to hamstring problems nine miles into the race.
Palacios, who won the race in 1985 and 1986, started fast in the mostly uphill early part of the race that begins in Parley's Canyon. By the six mile mark in East Canyon, Palacios led the next runners by 300 yards. Rosser, two-time defending champion Taha Mahmood and Criss Jones were running in a pack behind Palacios, with the rest of the field well behind.
"We thought when (Palacios) went out so fast we'd stay behind in a group and work together to try to catch him," Rosser said. "We wanted to catch up to him by the top of Little Mountain (about 11 miles into the race) because we thought he might be able to pull away again going downhill. We made up a lot of ground, but couldn't catch him (by Little Mountain)."
At the marathon's halfway point, Palacios (1:14:41) led Rosser by 20 seconds. James and Mahmood had fallen back 20 seconds behind Rosser.
Sixteen miles into the race James, the record holder for the fastest Utah marathon (2:15:15 in St. George), started to fall back and it was a three-man race. Two miles later Mahmood dropped back and it was down to two vying for the title.
Rosser kept in striking distance and finally took over the lead on 13th East near the University of Utah about 21 miles into the race. Palacios gave it one last push and actually took the lead on South Temple near 7th East with about three miles to go, but dehydration got the best of him.
Mahmood finished third (2:31:49), three minutes slower than his winning time a year ago.
"I'm happy with the way I ran," Palacios said. "It was an excellent race, I just didn't have the legs left to finish strong."
The 29-year-old Rosser, who is now an assistant cross country and track coach at the University of Utah, said he now has his sights set on running a sub-2:20 marathon in St. George in October and qualifying for the Olympic Trials.
Finishing the race, not winning, is the goal of most of the 500-plus marathon entrants. One runner who has finished more than his share of 26.2-mile races is John Coles, a 76-year-old runner from Moreno Valley, Calif. For Coles, who said "I only run two or three marathons a year anymore," this was Deseret News marathon No. 15. Coles' running partner for the day was his grandson, John Coles III, a 25-year-old from Clearfield, who was running in his first-ever marathon.