BOUNTIFUL — In recent years, those 26.2-mile marathons had been getting to be ho-hum, too easy, a little passe for runners Don and Kathy Milligan.
So, over the course of two days on Sept. 11 and 12, they'll try a little walk in the park called the Wasatch 100 Mile Endurance Run, known in running parlance as an ultra-marathon.
Do they have what it takes to finish? No one, not even the sport's elite endurance runners, knows the answer to that question until long after the gun goes off.
Are the Milligans prepared? Well, ready as they'll ever be.
These two love to run, particularly as a pair.
The Milligans met 27 years ago while running, began training together 26 years ago and, 25 years ago, as of this past March, they married.
For years, Kathy Milligan, now 46, held the 800-meter race record at Viewmont High, where one of her three grown children still owns the 100-meter record.
"She's the athlete," her husband says.
Friends will agree and are in awe of her natural running abilities.
"Kathy is an amazing athlete," said Andrea Peterson.
She and Kathy Milligan, through the years, have benefited from venting during so-called therapy runs, when what is said on the road "stays on the road," according to Peterson. She'll be a pacer for her friend during the Wasatch 100.
Don Milligan, 49, the less chatty, more introspective of the Milligan running duo, has never outgrown his love of pounding the pavement and will always, somehow, find time to lace up a pair.
Hard to believe he runs at all when you figure in family time and his two full-time jobs. By day, he's an administrator at the Huntsman Cancer Institute. Often, after work, the necktie stays on for this bishop of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' Bountiful Heights 54th Ward, which has about 300 members he checks in on.
These days, the Milligans will sometimes leave early in the morning on a weekday and run to Don Milligan's work. Or they'll run after work. They ran home after a marathon in Salt Lake City this past spring.
In short, they make time to run — no lame excuses.
So, Mom and Dad Milligan, all these years later, are still running together.
Their sprinting days are over. Now, running is more about distance, longevity, testing limits, setting loftier goals.
Marathons have lost their allure for the Milligans. They've been looking for a new challenge. A feat of a friend and fellow runner Charley Allen became an inspiration, the catalyst that compelled the Milligans to dream bigger.
In 1986 and 1988, Allen — then in his late 30s — finished the Wasatch 100. Most ultra runners tend to be in their 30s or 40s, but sometimes Wasatch 100 competitors and finishers are in their 60s or even 70s.
The race starts in Kaysville and ends in Midway, and in between, it offers towering ascents and harrowing descents, heat, cold, roots, rocks and, if Mother Nature is feeling generous, a little rain or snow. Sightseeing is optional — and potentially dangerous.
Runners from around the country and globe enter. Six-time winner (and Utah resident) Karl Meltzer will be running. So will four-time female winner Betsy Nye.
The winning men come in at around 20 hours, and the top females are usually about four or five hours after that.
In the past, some runners, bent over and almost broken, have added drama by arriving in Midway with mere minutes or seconds to spare before the 36-hour cutoff for an official finish. The finish-line crowd goes wild when that happens.
"You gotta be kinda nuts," Allen said about why people choose to run the Wasatch 100.
Turns out the Milligans can identify just fine with their friend, with his soft spot for torturous athletic events. The Wasatch 100's motto is, "The Toughest Footrace You'll Ever Love." Allen wants back in the Wasatch saddle, planning to run it again next year.
"They'll do really well," Allen predicted.
If his soothsaying is accurate and the Milligans stay on their planned pace, they'll finish in about 32 hours, give or take.
No one who has ever completed the grueling race through the Wasatch Mountains every September will disagree much on its level of difficulty. It's not for the faint of heart, mind or body.
Every year since 1980, when two of five people entered actually finished the race, not-quite everyday runners, alongside elite endurance athletes, have set out to conquer the Wasatch 100.
Many try. Many succeed, happy with just a finish. And many fail, only to try again and again in some cases.
Some people who run ultra-marathons will tell you, "It gets in your blood."
Even some of ultra running's best have a few Wasatch 100 failed attempts under their belts. Anything can happen out there in the mountains over the course of two days — stress fractures, raging blisters, back pain, race-ending falls, fatigue, dehydration, excessive or dangerous weight loss, and on and on.
This would be a good point to ask again: Why?
"We forgot that feeling of pushing ourselves to the limit," Kathy Milligan said about how marathons had become "no big deal."
"It's something we've always wanted to do," her husband said.
Yes, but why? Why, beyond the usual response that ultra runners are insane, nuts or crazy?
"This is a personal thing between Kathy and I," he added.
He said they wanted to test the "edge" of their limits, gain a deeper understanding of their abilities and capacities, to "go to a place in yourself you've never been," learn what they each can "really" do by going beyond just the "casual" training their running regimen had become.
"It's hard or impossible to explain — and that's OK," Don Milligan said about trying to answer the "why" question.
In the past, he, for spiritual reasons, would not run on a Sunday, which is when runners have finished throughout the day. He still doesn't run on the Sabbath, but this year, race director John Grobben, that lovable fatherly figure at the finish with hugs for all, changed the dates to a Friday and Saturday.
The Milligans noted the schedule change, entered the lottery to get in the race and got what they wanted. They announced their good fortune last winter at a family dinner, using water bottles as props.
"It's all or nothing now," Kathy Milligan said.
Their training changed. More trails. More miles — sometimes 100 in a week. More shoes as they wear out. And more help from the family.
Each of the Milligans' three children will crew for their parents. Meagan Jensen, 24, Mason Milligan, 22, and Marshall Milligan, 21, will meet their parents at aid stations with food, energy drinks and gels, changes of clothes or shoes and, maybe most importantly, words of encouragement.
Son-in-law Luke Jensen and some of the Milligans' friends will help pace the pair after the 39-mile marker. Because of Don Milligan's poor eyesight, brought on by a genetic defect since birth, his wife said she plans on staying with her husband until that point.
After they split at about 40 miles and pacers take over, then the ebbs and flows of ultra running will hit at different times for each, making it almost impossible to stay together. Each will be on the other's mind throughout.
"I think it's amazing," Marshall Milligan said about what his parents are trying to do.
"They've put so much time and energy into this," Meagan Jensen said. "I think they will finish. I can't see them quitting."
"I'll be dead," her mom laughed.
The irony there is that, despite their love of keeping up a nice-looking yard, their plants, flowers and patches of grass at their home have died, are dying or are still in pots, dead or waiting to be planted. Shirts that go unlaundered (20 recently) end up at the dry cleaners. Busted stuff around the house goes without repair. And the children, though grown, see much less of Mom and Dad than ever before.
Priorities change when runners train for the Wasatch 100. It's what makes training for the race together that much sweeter for the Milligans.
Other things are thrown out of balance, but they can still hear each other breathing and talking and the sound of each other's footfalls, training together through it all.
"She's physically and emotionally very strong," Don Milligan said about his wife. "She never gives up — and she has a lot of fun doing it."
Kathy Milligan said that the longer she runs, the happier and more talkative she gets. As the miles tick by in a 50-mile training run, she said her husband get increasingly quiet.
"Since I don't talk, I think a lot," he said.
On Sept. 12, if they're still vertical and officially in the hunt for a finish in Midway, then they'll have those final miles to think about or talk about, as the case may be, what it will be like to reach their loftiest running goal yet: conquering the Wasatch 100.
Wasatch 100
100-mile endurance run
Friday, Sept. 11, and Saturday, Sept. 12
Starts at: Kaysville
Finishes at: Midway
Allotted time to finish: 36 hours
Defending champions: Men — Karl Meltzer (six-time winner); women — Betsy Nye (four-time winner)