No full marathon? No problem.
Following nearly two straight days of rain that forced the cancellation of the full marathon at the Sedona Marathon Event, the skies and subsequent fog cleared in time for Ganado runner Alvin Begay to edge legacy runner Aaron Biah of Flagstaff by two-tenths of a second in the half-marathon Saturday, Jan. 31.
“On the way back, I got kind of a cramp in my stomach,” said Biah, who has run in the Event since its inception in 2005 but who, along with Begay, had only run the 10K up until this year. “I couldn’t close the gap.”
Begay and Biah finished a second-and-a-half ahead of Brian Tinder, also of Flagstaff.
“It was a last-minute decision to do the half, because I was so unsure coming down,” said Begay, who hit the runners’ wall in the final half-mile of the course. “I turned around to see where the second-place runner was, because I was starting to cramp up a bit. I had started to loosen up around mile five.”
For the full story, including first-place finishers in the 5K, 10K and half-marathon by age group, please see the Wednesday, Feb. 4, issue of the Camp Verde Journal and Cottonwood Journal Extra.
