St George Marathon 2026; Race Recap

Oct 6

4 min read

By Coach Nic Baxter | NBx Running Coach

St George is in the books: 4:33:33 on Saturday, October 3. Marathon two of four this fall, five weeks after Sydney and four weeks before New York.

The race went OK. Not a PR day, but with Sydney still in my legs, a solid long effort on one of the most scenic courses in the country, run alongside friends, is a good result in the middle of a four-marathon fall.

Getting there

I flew out to Utah on Thursday morning with some of the Amazing Feet Running Club crew. Arriving Thursday gave us a full day on Friday to pick up bibs at the expo at the Dixie Convention Center, shake out the legs and settle in before an early night.

St George is a point-to-point course, and the logistics are part of the experience:

Buses to the start. Marathon runners load at Vernon Worthen Park downtown, which is also the finish, between 3:45 and 5:15 a.m. That means a very early alarm.
The start line. The buses climb to Central, a small town above 5,200 ft in the Pine Valley Mountains. You wait in the dark and the cold for a 7 a.m. start, so bring throwaway layers you are happy to donate.
The finish. You run straight back into town to the park where you boarded the bus, so meeting friends and family afterward is easy.

Tip for anyone thinking about this one: book your hotel close to Vernon Worthen Park. Walking to the bus at 4 a.m. beats driving and parking.

The course

St George has a reputation as a fast, downhill course, and the numbers back it up. My watch logged 2,999 ft of descent against just 469 ft of climbing.

The profile comes in three parts:

Miles 1 to 7: a gentle start, then a real descent. You roll out of Central through open high desert. By mile 7 you have already dropped nearly 800 ft, and it is very easy to run these miles too fast.
Miles 7 to 11: Veyo. Veyo Hill is the one climb everybody talks about, and it earns it. It comes right after the long descent, past the black cone of the Veyo volcano, and the course keeps rolling uphill for another few miles after it. My slowest mile before 23 was the Veyo mile.
Miles 11 to 26.2: downhill to town. From the high point at mile 11 it is almost all down through red rock country into St George. Some of those miles drop more than 250 ft.

A downhill marathon is not an easy marathon. All that descending hammers the quads, and the bill comes due in the last 10K. If you are training for St George, add downhill running to your long runs and strength work for the quads in the months before.

The weather

Weather at St George is a story of two places. Central sits above 5,200 ft, and race mornings there typically start in the 30s or 40s °F, however for us it was in the high 50s.

Downtown St George is 2,500 ft lower in the desert and often hits the high 70s or low 80s by early afternoon. You run from one climate into the other.

My watch's temperature sensor climbed steadily all morning, from the low 70s °F in the first miles to the low 90s °F over the last 5K. Wrist sensors read warm because they pick up body heat, so the air was cooler than that, but the trend is real: it warmed up a lot as we came down into town.

If you run St George, dress for a cold start with throwaway layers, and plan your fluids and electrolytes for a hot finish. A 4:30 runner spends the last hour in the warmest part of the day.

The race by the numbers

I went through halfway in 2:11:30 and ran the second half in 2:22:03. Twenty-two miles of steady running, then four tough ones.

Stat	St George 2026
Finish time	4:33:33
Distance (watch)	26.27 mi
Average pace	10:25 /mi
Halves	2:11:30 / 2:22:03
Heart rate, avg / max	152 / 176 bpm
Climb / descent	469 ft / 2,999 ft

I held a sensible effort through the early descent, with miles 3 to 7 between 9:39 and 9:57, and kept it together over Veyo (11:07 for the climb mile). Miles 12 to 22 were the best stretch of the day, mostly under 10:00 as the course dropped toward town.

Miles 23 to 26 were a different story at 11:06 to 13:51 per mile. My heart rate dropped into the 140s over those miles, down from around 160 earlier, so I still had more to give, however my legs, after 2,500 ft of downhill and a marathon five weeks earlier, did not. I still found a kick for the last quarter mile.

What I'm taking to New York

St George was 4:33, about 12 minutes slower than Sydney's 4:21 five weeks earlier. On a course that drops 2,500 ft and finishes in the desert heat, that is a result I can live with.

Three things I'm taking with me:

Downhill costs more than it gives back. The early miles feel free. The last 10K do not!
Heart rate tells the story. My HR fell in the final miles, so fitness was not the limiter. Leg durability was. That is what the next four weeks are about.
Recovery is training now. With marathons stacked this close, the priority between races is to arrive fresh, not to add fitness.

Next up is New York in four weeks, marathon three of four. Five boroughs, five bridges, and thankfully no 2,500 ft drop. Huge thanks to the Amazing Feet crew who made the trip. Running a race like this with friends makes the early bus worth it.

Want a training plan built around your goals, your terrain, and your schedule? I'd love to help you get there — reach out for a free intro call and let's talk about what's next.

Coach Nic Baxter is an RRCA Level 2 Certified Running Coach and ACE-Certified Personal Trainer, based in Morristown, NJ. She coaches runners locally and virtually worldwide through NBx Running Coach and is currently training for NYC Marathon.