Between Strides: My Half-Marathon Adventure at Snow Canyon

Hello everyone , my name is Jake Bushman and I am the host of Journey with Jake . This is the podcast that inspires you to overcome challenges through adventure . This episode will be a little unique , as it is another opportunity for me to talk about my own journey and the adventure of running my second ever half marathon .

I also answer some questions about who I am as a way to get to know yours truly just a little bit better . So sit back and relax and join me on my run through Snow Canyon in St George , utah . Welcome to Journey with Jake . This is a podcast about adventure and how , through our adventures , we can overcome the challenges of life that come our way .

While I expect you will learn some things about different adventures , this show will entertain you . Each episode will feature a different guest or guest , as they share experiences and stories from the different adventures they have been on .

Not only will you be entertained , but you will also hear the failures and trials each guest faces and what they have done or are doing to overcome the hardships that come their way . My goal is to take each of us on a journey through the experiences of my guests , with the hope that you will be entertained and inspired to overcome your day to day challenges .

After all , it's not all about the destination as it is about the journey . Welcome back to another episode of Journey with Jake . This is technically episode number 81 , but I guess you can consider it somewhat of a bonus episode , since it is really all about me on this one .

Before we jump into this , just a reminder to give me a follow on Instagram at Journey with Jake Podcast . Leave me a rating and review on Apple Podcast . Leaving ratings allows Journey with Jake to get in front of more folks who are looking for the inspiration and adventure that these episodes can provide . I am excited for the future of this show .

As we get closer to episode 100 , I only see positive things happening with the show . I have some fantastic guests coming up in the next few weeks and I am excited for everyone to hear their stories . Journey with Jake is and has been my passion and I love the fact that I get to bring these conversations to all of you .

Thank you for your help in making this a reality . Back in June , after I completed my first ever half marathon , I had former guest Rick Bamford guest host and interview me about my journey . For this go around , I have former guest and friend Paul Peterson here to interview me . If you want to hear more from Paul , check out his episode .

It was episode number 14 about biking the Wasatch Crest . I'm grateful for Paul . Paul has been one of my strongest supporters from day one . He and I had lunch a couple months before the launch of Journey with Jake back in 2021 . And he has been listening ever since , from episode one all the way up through now .

I think he's listened to pretty much every episode and I'm just grateful for him to take a few minutes out of his day to interview me and talk to me about my journey with this half marathon . Thank you for all indulging me a bit as I share some facts about me and going on this half marathon journey with me .

Let's get to the episode .

And before I tell you about myself and I'm not going to go into too much detail there because I did that on my last recap episode but I do want to say I am happy to have Paul here because Paul's been just a good friend and a good supporter of the show since like day one . I think you and I talked about it before I even started doing it .

I think I was telling you I was going to do it and you were like oh , I listened to podcasts and told me all about it , and then you've been just a regular listener since day one . So I'm glad to have you hosting me this time around . So thank you for doing that .

But I don't remember anything about living here because I was a baby . We moved away . But I remember living in the Midwest because that's where I first started remembering things . Living in Iowa , then lived in Ohio for a little bit , moved to Arizona when I was going into the fifth grade , and so Arizona is what I call home .

I guess if people were to ask you know where are you from , where's home , it'd be Arizona , southeast Arizona . So I'm kind of a desert guy . So that's where I'm from , where I grew up .

They still live in Arizona , but I do have a sister close by and a brother way out east .

It was almost like a story that you were kind of learning about , which they are kind of history is somewhat of stories that was happening . So I kind of liked history . I had a couple of good history teachers . One of my history teachers was actually turns out .

He was doing drugs and dealing drugs to students but he was actually had interesting lectures when he was aware of his surroundings . I guess to do a good lecture he would give good lectures . I'll say it will stick with history , even though that's probably not a great answer . We'll say history .

I got two of them as well , so Lizzie and Noel . So happy to have them part of the family as well .

So definitely Vegas , for sure , las Vegas .

But I was thinking about food in general . Like chicken's always a good choice because you can have it baked , you can have it fried , you can have it on a sandwich , you can have leftovers cold . I like chicken in a variety of forms . I like to make what my mom called Hawaiian chicken when I was growing up .

It's a baked chicken legs with some you mix some like Hawaii or Hawaii , some pineapple juice and some Heinz 57 and some honey and put it on top of the chicken and bake it . I still love that .

It just really helps me focus . When I do it every morning I feel a lot more focused and a lot better about my day , so that's been a big help for me . It's been a book that's really helped me a lot . As far as fiction goes , oh , years ago I read a book by . The author's name is Dean Hughes . It was a Children of the Promise series .

It's a historical fiction . So it had some historical nonfiction stuff in it , but like a fictional family , kind of what they're going through during like World War II time . So that was good . Favorite movie I love the Count of Money , christo , the one with who's a guy , pearson , jim Cavizial Like that was a great movie . It's got everything you need , you know .

It's got little actions , got a little romance . It's got the revenge factor there's some about like people getting revenge on people Nice Favorite TV show I love . The Office . There's not much better than the Office . I mean there's just I can watch that at any point and just stop and watch it .

In fact , a lot of times when I'm in my hotel rooms , if I'm on the road , it seems to be on like a channel . So I was like it'll just stop me in my tracks for a minute and I'll have to watch , watch the show At least until the commercial . Yeah , exactly .

There's nothing in Rexburg , there's not a lot to see there and do there , but I enjoy my visits there because they're there . I think is the reason why . So you got family , I think . So wherever . Wherever family is , I think , is where I like to visit .

This one was in St George mostly because it's a lower elevation , it's a little further south , so I figured the weather would be a little bit better than what it could be up here and luckily it was great .

The weather was fantastic , timed it perfectly because it started raining , you know , that day , or whatever it started raining so the race weather was fantastic , but I decided on that one . It's a beautiful course . It kind of runs through what they call Snow Canyon .

It's like about a four mile trek through this little state park that they have down there , and it was gorgeous , a beautiful run . So that's where it was .

I decided probably , oh , a month and a half or two months after I finished the other . Well , about a month and a half after I finished the other one , I said all right , I'm going to do another one , pick that one . And so that's where it was . It took place in St George .

So they were supportive , they were fine with it . I think the the part that was a little bit different kind of get into this point I didn't have Carson run with me , my neighbor . He ran with me on a few runs but he wasn't going to participate this time . For the most part I did .

I did all my long runs without him , so I didn't have that support of someone there . But I did learn some things and I've . I had some people for support , especially people who were been on this podcast , jacob and Melody Bateman . I know I've talked about them a few times and kind of promoted them a little bit .

I had a little sit down with them and they kind of went over what I should be doing and things I should be looking at . They got me into doing a little bit of strength training , like with my legs and things , just some stretches , some calisthenics with some bands and things like that .

That helped big time because I know the first race my legs just felt spent . I didn't feel like that this time . I felt like my legs had strength . I felt spent in some other areas which we'll talk about a little bit , but I felt good that way .

The other , you know , the other person that I kind of was influenced me was Mario Minert , who he's a endurance coach and a life coach , and so he and I have stayed in touch and he'll message me every so often and check it on me and I had a few runs in training where , you know , things that he said or things that he taught kind of came to mind and

really helped me and helped me push through things . So family was on board , but I think it's just everybody in this runner community that you come across and I've interviewed quite a few runners now . They're all just like really supportive , which is really cool .

But I went through that 14 week training program again . It includes like a couple of recovery runs , a long run and some like oh , some temple runs and some different runs like that throughout the week . So I followed that to build up . I look at it hindsight now and I feel like I need to have a little bit more of the longer runs near the end .

So , in other words , instead of doing to 14 week , maybe I started at I don't know 10 weeks or not 10 , but like 18 weeks , and when I get to that point maybe I can stick on the distance a little bit more . Because I pooped out at the end of this one .

I mean I still finished across the line whatever spoiler alert that I finished , but I struggled a little bit more than I felt like I should , if that makes sense .

Yeah , so I did this nine mile run and I went up Hobble Creek here in in just outside of Mapleton Springville area and I was coming back and I was feeling OK partway through it , but I got to where I had like three or four miles left and I was spent . I'm like how am I going to do this ?

It's the same thing happened the first time I did it , but it was like when I did a six mile run . My nine mile run on the previous training was really good . So I thought , oh , this is the nine mile run , it's going to be great . It was not great , didn't feel good , it was rough . It just wasn't not good and that's yeah .

I had that moment where I was just like , man , what am I doing ? Why am I doing this run again ? Because I did not feel good at all , but I somehow finished . I finished the run , shook my head , disappointed in myself . But I know there's always like another day , like let's just put it behind me , let's get to the next one , and that's what I did .

You know it's just pouring on me , but I finished the run and it was just fun to do Like it was . So it's kind of fun and invigorating and I thought , man , if I can do this , I can do anything . I just kind of felt on top of the world in . My shoes were soaked , I was just soaked , everything was soaked .

I did pass another runner who was running in the rain as well and she and I kind of gave each other that you know , run or wave and nod and I was just like this is cool , I'm here doing this , we're both crazy . Good job . Yeah , we're both nuts , we're both out here getting soaked .

Luckily , it wasn't too cold , it was a little bit chilly , but not bad , and I wore like the right clothes because it was kind of a little drizzly . I thought I might do something , so I kind of wore a little . I wouldn't call it rainproof , it's definitely wasn't rainproof , but more of a Rain resistant type of jacket that I wore .

So that helped , but it was just . It was funny . I have the water dripping off my head and it's just kind of cool . So , that was like , that was a fun moment .

It was kind of a big to do . There was over 2000 runners , which is a good amount . I think the race I did for Tempano's was over a thousand , so this one was , you know , quite a bit more . They take you up in buses similar to the Tempano goes to the starting line and they kind of put you in this place to kind of wait it out .

And normally it's like I've seen I was watching videos of people in priors and they're up there like freezing and it's cold . It wasn't terrible , like it kind of clouded over a little bit , so it was chilly . It was in the forties I think , but it wasn't bad and they had a few heaters so people were kind of gathering around heaters .

I had a jacket that I put on , some gloves and then he turned in a bag before he run down . So that way you don't have to carry all your stuff . But the sun came out at one point , a rainbow popped up at one point while we're waiting . It was just kind of a good atmosphere .

And then they kind of lead you out to the starting line and they kind of have you line up to where you think you will do . And so I lined up with these Pacers that had the two hour five minute time frame .

I , you know , I , as we're lining up on this road and it's like just a road , just the main highway there , you know , again , tons of people I start seeing these guys like running off just on the side of the road to go the bathroom , you know , like taking a leak over there , and I was like I kind of got to go a little bit and so I walked up to

this old guy . I'm like , is this where we go to the bathroom ? He's like , I guess so , and so you know , in front of everybody , I mean I was not behind a tree , a bush , nothing , I'm just going , you know just . You know just getting ready to run , I guess . So it was kind of funny , I was laughing about that .

She's like she wanted to do under two hours so she kind of went up a little closer and she killed it . She had a great race . She ran it in , I think , 149 or something . She was awesome . I'm proud of her , but that was a lot of fun . It was a lot of fun having her up there .

I ran into an old friend from Vegas and actually episode number 27 , Ryan Winder . He was there . He ran in it . So that was cool . That's cool . And the guy who actually won the race was a missionary in Vegas , where I was , and I knew him . So I knew him there and I knew his fiance .

So I ran into them at the end found out he won the race in an hour or five minutes . It was all that took him .

to set . Here's the funny part I couldn't even set my phone to track . Like it wasn't picking up any , like it was roaming , it was . I was having issues , oh well , and part of me was okay with that . I have a guest who's going to be on the next week Ryan Head , he told me , and he's a runner .

He said don't even worry about your pace , just go out and run . I was like perfect . So I'm kind of part of me was kind of glad . And there were spots like can you get to three miles ? It kind of had a timer up and they were tracking you throughout the race . You can kind of see what you were doing . So I had no idea what I was doing .

Okay , but I had a game plan . I was like all right , I am going to go out slow , that's my plan is to go out slow , that's what I want to do , and that's sure enough . You know , we start and I walk all the way up to the start because I got a chip . So the chip is what's really tracking me Right , right .

So I walked all the way and I was kind of way back there , because again there's 2000 people all the way to start and then I start just barely jogging and that first mile people are flying by me zoom and pass me and I kept doing . You know , I kept my hands like , okay , just stay , do what you've been practicing and training .

You know , just keep it nice and easy and break your way up . That's kind of how I like to run . I like to start slow and then work my way up , so I did that . Finally about mile one . I think people found their groove , found the rhythm kind of stayed the way it should stay , and then I started passing people .

And then , next thing , you know , I was in a groove . I was in a groove from about mile three to like mile seven or so you hit at four miles was when you turn into the state park for snow canyon and I was just feeling really good . Then I started talking to people as they ran by . I was giving people five that they're on the side of the road .

I was having a good time . So I was in a groove from about , you know , three miles to about seven , seven and a half eight somewhere in there . Cruising felt good .

And then I caught up about the five mile mark to the two hour people and I was in such a rhythm I just I ended up passing them . And now I look back at it and I'm like Hmm maybe I should just stuck with them and ran that pace , because they passed me a little bit later and so did the 205 . But that's another story .

But yeah , I caught them , felt good , I was feeling in rhythm , I was rolling , it was good at that point .

I was like , yeah , it's just a little twinge , little something in my heel and that kind of progressively got worse , got to seven and a half , and seven and a half is where I said , all right , I'm gonna take some liquids and I'm gonna take my little goo for some substance , you know , a little something to give me some energy .

So I get there , I drank some Gatorade , drink some water , kept rolling and there's this huge . It's beautiful , huge , like the largest flag Flying over there , like it's awesome , like it's just kind of really cool , really serene . So I take off run again . I forgot to take the goo , but I got I don't know A quarter mile down the road .

I'm like , oh yeah , my goo , and so I pull it out and take it while I'm running , mm-hmm . And so my hand gets all sticky , and I haven't sticky hands , so that started annoying me that my hands are sticky . We get to the edge of the park and then we hop onto just like a trail and I'm still running up .

At that point my heel is really starting to kind of hurt a little bit . I'm like dang , I just . But I'm like I got to keep just Rolling . But I noticed my pace slowed up at that point .

People were kind of past me as a tighter group now , because we're gonna tighter , we're not on a road anymore , we're on just like a Bike trail kind of thing , but you know , a paved one . And then I get to mile nine and there's another little pit stop and that's where I just like , all of a sudden I hit a wall .

I was just like , wow , got some more liquid there , kept moving after that . But then I had to . I stopped and walked for a second and I tried to pick up my pace again and I just could not get it back To where it was muscle , your hill , your mind , everything all of it , all the above sticky hands .

I ended up getting sick to my stomach , like vomiting sick , and I remember thinking the first thing that came to my mind was like , oh man , I hope I can run the to have marathon in two days . It ended up being just a quick little you know eight hour deal or whatever . I was better , but I didn't eat much leading up to it .

Well , I've been up all night puking , so yeah and I'm just thinking in my mind like huh , that's it's , it's got to play a little bit in your mind and then just your body , it's just . You need that sustenance to To be in good form right , I agree , I , I think that was some .

I think now , moving forward , now that I I hate the sticky hand thing , yeah , and I've had goo on a lot of my training runs and I get a little bit of sticky hands there too , which would bother me . I need more of like those .

I crossed under road at mile 10 , after the 10 mile mark , yeah , and I remember coming up this hill and I was just like now I'm going up a hill , what's up , you know , everything was downhill . That was a little challenging too . The downhills were like a lot steeper than I thought like .

I remember leaning back quite a bit , like trying to hold myself , so that kind of threw . My legs are still sore from that to this day .

But I'd come up that hill at 10 miles and I was like man , and that's where I kind of got into a little , a little thing of okay , I'd walk for like up a little hill and then I'd run where it wasn't , where it was flat or downhill , but my pace was so slow , people were just too too .

I wanted to at least be Shuffling if I was shuffling . And so I don't .

You know , I don't know if it's just you do that , you might you just convince yourself like , hey , I'm gonna do this thing , I signed up for this , I tell about it on my podcast all the time and partly that's why I do that is because I want it to be a source of accountability for me like , hey , you told all your guests , you've told all your people

listening that you're running this thing . And then , if you don't , or you back out or whatever , so I was gonna come in , no matter what . I remember climbing one hill near the end , two , where my legs started and I never had that Happened to training where my legs kind of started cramping . It was brutal , you know , getting within the last mile .

I remember I was barely shuffling along and this old guy comes up next to me and he's like this is great , we're doing it . And he looks I mean the guy had to be in his mid 70s , maybe even pushing 80 , and he's passing me , you know , and I'm like , yes , yeah , and it kind of motivated me enough to keep going . Now he did , he , I don't know .

He finished in front of me and went on to finish it .

You know , we're still right behind you , no matter what , if I would still be willing to guest host the podcast if you didn't finish the race , you know .

To talk about my failure , yeah you beyond the like , pure guilt and shame , like there is there another side of it that you've used in training , that people you've talked to are like , hey , repeat something in your mind , so you're not thinking about how your heel hurts or I don't know . I'm not a runner , so this is all news to me .

It was like it was like the barbie , so you know .

This time it was , you know , I think Mario Minert has a few sayings and I remember one of his and I can't even Think of what it was now , but I one of his sayings came into my mind about being consistent . Consistency , because that's where I tried to just hey one foot in front of the other .

So , yeah , you definitely you got to do , you got to find something that works for you . But there's definitely something to that .

So even though I was shuffling , even though I was going really slow , I managed to keep moving the last three quarters of a mile , whatever it was . And then it was weird too , because all of a sudden I came around a corner like , and it's like , there's the school , there's a high school , the finish line . I was like , wow , it's right there .

And so I managed to , you know , get through there . And at that point there's people lined up on both sides of the street , people cheering , people screaming . I saw one guy getting loaded into an ambulance . I was like , oh so .

And good , was I happy with that ?

Yeah , the dehydration right yeah yeah , I talked to my phone , like on my phone , just saying hey , I did it , you know kind of thing , and I was like my mouth was like I talked like this because my mouth was so , so dry , right . So .

And then my son , josh , who came with me that was cool too that he , he came down from from Rexburg , idaho , him and his wife came down . My wife couldn't make it and my daughter couldn't make it because of dance stuff . So just my son came , his wife stayed up here with my , my wife and daughter .

So my son came with me , so he came out onto the track . Afterwards it was like the first person to agree me so that was really cool .

It took me a month and a half driving home . That day I was like , all right , what's the next one I'm gonna do ? I'm already like contemplating what I'm gonna do next . So I I know some things I got . The cool part is being two races into it . Now I know there's some other things I need to improve on . There's some things I can do better .

I kind of have a better idea . Okay , what am I gonna do now when I get to that eight , nine mile point where I'm dead all of a sudden ? How do I improve upon that ? I'm definitely gonna be reaching out to the Batemans again . I'm gonna be like , hey , here's my problem . I get to this point , I hit a wall . What do I need to do ?

The other thing I realize you know I need to do I need to lose some weight . Paul , like , honestly , like I'm carrying too much weight for my height and for running this . Maybe that's why my heel hurt , I don't know . My heel's still numb , by the way , right now .

I kind of like doing different ones , just because it's kind of fun to see something different . Utah Valley's got a half marathon like the first weekend in June , something I in that one . There's also one really close to home that runs through Helple Creek Canyon . That's just , you know , a few miles down the road .

I'm looking at that , so I haven't decided yet , but that'll happen . I'm . I talked to my younger brother too . I'm kind of maybe getting him motivated , so will , if you're listening , you know this is your chance to hop on board .

There's like I made this decision . I need to do it . So congratulations , man . That's really cool . Thank you , paul . I appreciate that

man . What a gorgeous area to run in yeah , that was absolutely beautiful .

I was such in such a rhythm at that point I didn't really want to stop . But I don't see anything wrong with stopping and smell the roses along the way . I don't think there's anything wrong with that yeah , that's good , I don't know .

So every time runners came by , my wife and I were like jamming the music for them and cheering for them , and they were having a good time .

There's one point in the canyon and first of all , no vehicles were allowed in now the canyon while we ran through there , but there were still some fans in there and at one point there's like a little family and the couple of like the little kids stuck out their hands to get fives and there was a younger girl across the road from them .

She was probably high school or maybe college age and I remember watching her run all the way back across the road to give them fives . I thought that was cool . It's like okay , she saw the little girl reaching out , kind of looking up to her , so she ran across to do that and then I came through and did it .

At that point I was happy and talking to people and asking people to make noise and you know I was just having fun at that point and it wasn't until later when I was dying , where I probably wasn't looking at people as closely . So a lot of cool things happen on the runs like that , when you see fun things like that and Alright , we'll let us now keep .

The majority of them say when I ask for their parting words . It's kind of their thing . It's like , hey , doesn't have to be this or doesn't have to be that , but find something that's fun for you , that you can set a goal to do might be a little difficult to achieve and just go for it and do it . Did I accomplish exactly what I want to accomplish ?

You know , time wise and stuff , maybe not , but I didn't . What wasn't really the focus of it ? The focus was of us to have a good journey and to train and to work towards something and to do it , and I did do that . So that was . That was awesome . I know I can improve , I know it can do better .

We can always do that , but you got to start somewhere and so that's what I've done and I look at , I look back at this podcast journey . I look back .

You know , my first episode was with my brother , just trying to figure out what I was doing , didn't know how to edit very good and now I've you know I'm 80 plus episodes in and it's just , it's awesome . I met some awesome people along the way . I've done the same thing with running .

I've met a lot of cool people through through running now as well , that I found , you know , through through interviewing them or whatever , or just you know people reaching out to me and it's been fantastic . That's been the best part . Paul , thanks for uh , thanks for hosting man hey , glad to do it .

I just did the snow cannon half marathon and the journey that I went through there also got to know me a little bit better as well with some rapid fire type questions that he asked me , so I hope you get to know who I am just a little bit better .

I'm thankful to each and every one of you for tuning in each week . I hope you enjoy these conversations that I have . I know this was kind of a different , little different episode . I have some fantastic guests . I got some great guests coming up . Keep listening , keep doing what you're doing .

Thank you so much for for coming on this journey with me and I want to hear about your journey . If you have a special place that you've been , maybe a certain adventure , maybe a certain passion , maybe something you've overcome , talk to me , reach out to me , let's talk about it .

You can send me an email , jake at journey with jakenet , or you can DM me on instagram at journey with jake podcast . Just remember , not always about the destination , as it is about the journey . Take care everybody .