Podcast Guide to the 2026 Ogden Marathon

SHANE OSGUTHORPE:
Alright, welcome to the Ogden wire, and we're joined today here with a couple of awesome gentlemen from the GOAL Foundation. We've got Troy Callentine, he's the Executive Director at the GOAL Foundation, and we also have Alex Davenport with us. He is the race director of all the amazing races that you're going to be hearing about. But we're going to talk today about the Ogden marathon up and coming. We're a couple weeks out. We want to just kind of run through all the questions that runners might have, the questions you guys are most asked, that maybe can be answered here in this format, so that information get out there. Let's, just start with race week, because I know that the marathon is much more than just day of, especially not just for you guys, but also for the runners. There's your Legacy Dinner, and there's clinics, there's, I mean, we'll go through all that. So let's just start this up race week. We'll say Monday before the marathon, why don't we jump in Troy, start us off?

TROY CALLENTINE,
GOAL FOUNDATION EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR:
Yeah, race week Monday. There's not a whole lot for participants, but the team and all our volunteers are certainly getting loaded up and loading out aid stations, water stations, things are getting all compiled and ready for people to pick up the real things for participants start on Wednesday, May 13 this year, which is going to be our Legacy Club dinner. So any of the participants who have ran 10 years or more come to have an opportunity to come to our Legacy Club dinner, which would be right here in Ogden, and we get to celebrate those who have been committed to the race for 10 years or longer.

SHANE:
And that's a number I've seen growing over the last well, since I've been involved with marathon, I've watched that number, you know, ever since 10, obviously. But where will that legacy dinner be held?

TROY:
This year is going to be out at Jeremiah's [Lodge & Garden] off 12th Street. Yeah, they've got a nice conference center, conference room out back, and some outdoor space included as well. So we're excited about that. Roosters will be the sponsor of the food and beverage. So they'll be on site, making making everybody's bellies happy.

SHANE:
That's a pretty place out there, too. So yeah, if you've run the marathon 10 years or more…

TROY:
We already have the list, and have likely been in contact. Kirsty, our admin, she's amazing, and stays in front of that list really, really prolifically. And like you said, there's a lot of people in the 7,8 9, 10 year span, right? Or 7,8,9 year span, they're coming into the queue. So the list grows, and it's pretty cool. This year is our 25th year anniversary, and we have, I believe, six or seven? I think there's six folks that this will be their 25th marathon running.

SHANE:
They've run every one.

TROY:
Every, single one.

TAYLOR HARTMAN, VISIT OGDEN
Why do you think people come back to run the Ogden Marathon year after year? What makes it so people do repeats?

TROY:
To hear Shane at the finish line!

SHANE:
Hahaha. Well, that’s it!

TROY:
Well, you know, it really is a community-driven event, a community-supported event. And you feel that energy when you show up in the morning to load the buses, when you show up to the start line, and you have those amazing volunteers supporting just a highly energetic, well organized start line. And then you run down the course, and it's beautiful and incredibly scenic, and all those pieces that come together, but you pass all these aid stations that are supported by these amazing, amazing local community volunteers. Some of them are organizations. Some of them are just groups, volunteers that are, you know, passionate about running and set up an aid station, water station for us. And that energy is different than you see at some other races out there, and that's been in place, really, since the race began, that that community engagement.

SHANE:
I want to just go a little deeper on that word you use, “energy." There's an energy around a marathon that is hard to explain. I am the last person in the world that is a morning person. I hate mornings. I would sleep till nine or 10 every day if I could; something about race morning at 3am when that alarm goes off and I have to go downtown to start helping you guys load buses, I get up with that... I'm not groggy, I'm not dragging, I'm moving, and I'm not saying... I'm not gonna say, I'm not tired. I'm tired, but there's an energy. And I will tell you, standing at the finish line, once the bus is loaded and they get up there, I'm standing at the finish line, and when that start gun goes off, we and we hear it over the radio, the race has started. You literally can feel the energy actually amp up even at the finish line. I can't imagine what it feels like at the start line. I've never had the opportunity to go up there, but you feel it at the finish line. There may be a dozen people around, kind of getting things ready to go for those runners coming, and everybody just you. You feel that energy. So I and I get I see, why volunteers show up to hand out water and to ring cow bells and to cheer.
It really is an amazing community event, and we can't thank the GOAL Foundation enough for helping us put it on. All right, so our legacy guys are going to come out on Wednesday. Our many are multiple year runners.

ALEX DOCTA, OGDEN MARATHON RACE DIRECTOR
Full marathon runners, we should say. If you’re interested in doing it? Yeah, the descriptor there is that you got to run the full for 10 years in a row. So can't do the half. You can do the half, but you got to mix. You got to get 10 fulls to make it.

SHANE:
Good to know. All right, then we go to what, Expo on Friday. Is that right?

TROY:
Yep, that's right. Yeah. This year, we've relocated the expo downtown to the Union Station, so iconic local Ogden building, and Alex and his team have crafted what we think is going to be a just well executed Expo this year in a really cool, nostalgic Ogden space, the view from the fountain looking up 25th Street toward the mountains, from the finish line looking down towards Union Station, are all very picturesque and notable images that Ogden’s, you know, known for, and we're going to be able to host our expo there this year.

SHANE:
Plus, it's a great place to carb load the day before the race. You're downtown with all those great restaurants, I'm sure a bunch of them will have pasta specials and all kinds of different carb loading specials.

TAYLOR:
Why the expo? What's the importance of having the expo? Like, why do you do it?

ALEX:
Well, there's a couple pieces. There's a couple logistical pieces, right? Like packet pickup happens there. So that's when the runners come and get their bib. And then, as opposed to getting 7,000 runners their bibs on event day morning before they load on the buses, there's that piece of it. The other part is that community activation and building piece. So we have, what do we have? Is it 42 or is it more than that? Vendors in the expo. 42 to 45.

So it's a great time. And those vendors are a mix of sponsors, community partners, and then local nonprofits that just kind of get in front of the the marathon crowd that's coming out to to engage and so, so it really just kicks things off. Just kicks off the weekend, right? That that Expo is sponsored by Fleet Feet. It's called the Fleet Feet Fun & Fitness Expo. They take up a decently sized footprint as well, so those runners have an opportunity to kind of get any of their last minute needs, but, but I think behind all that, it's like it, it's getting all the data in the runners hands. It's It's letting them ease their nerves and get ready for the next day. And then it's, it's beginning to show off that Ogden spirit and everything that downtown Ogden has to offer.

TROY:
Yeah, you mentioned that marathon energy, that big event energy. It really does start for us, really, it starts kind of now, it's like, it's all pending, you know, but for the participants, you know, the Legacy Club runners. They really start on Wednesday, but on Expo day, we have a little ribbon cutting grand opening right before 10 o'clock, and you can start to feel that energy. Then when people are showing up in anticipation of running their marathon the next day, whether it's their 25th their 10th, or their first or their third. You know people coming through. They have their family, their supporters, and they're, they're eager to, you know, to just go through and have that great experience and pick up whatever it is, maybe some extra nutrition, or, you know, grab something new. They're excited to see the new shirt that they're going to get with the race, and all those things and, and so, yeah, we lean into that, that experience from a like, logistical perspective, to make it smooth and easy for race day, but also for that energy and community engagement component as well. So we'll have, we have some live DJ music out on the plaza this year, and we've got everything from some of our local nonprofit vendors. So we'll have booths showcasing some of the amazing things ogden's nonprofit sphere does, as well as retail partners and other vendors that have, you know, athletic adjacent product to to showcase.

ALEX:
And then on the on the front end of that being the Fleet Feet Fun and Fitness Expo, the hour before it starts, so 9am we'll have a kickoff run at Fleet Feet’s downtown location on the Ogden River. So that's like shakeout run. And all runners of any distance. Are welcome to go and and take part in that, and then they can either jog or drive over to the expo and kind of kick that off. So it really is like, you know, when we talk about the start line, which I'm sure we'll get to, and the music and the countdown and the start, like it's, it's some of the on-site begin, a beginning, kind of tangible experience. It's like, you you're waiting to get led into the stadium to see a concert, but the energy's building outside, you know, energy just make your way closer and closer.

SHANE:
Yep. Well, now you mentioned, like, the community aspect of it, even if you're not a runner, it, like you said, it's a great time to come out because, man, you want to know what's going on in the Nature Center this summer, or at the Dinosaur Park, or with GOAL’s, you know, Kids Camps, or with there's this is the place to town, is it kind of, it's kind of the kickoff to event season, and you guys are obviously the first major event of the season, and it's a great place to just kind of plug into the entire community. Now, I know from being at the expo in years past, it's the time, like you said, a lot of questions get answered and are asked and answered. What are some of those major questions that get asked that maybe we can just answer here, that hopefully the Google bots and the AIs will find in this transcript that will answer their questions. Should they be on their phone or whatever? What are some of those main questions? I know, I know bus loading times, parking, where's the best place for my family to watch? Can that be? Have my family see me on course and then still make it to the finish line? Why don't we answer some of those basics that are kind of the constant questions that come in?

ALEX:
Yeah, well, I think first and foremost, especially to participants or or folks that are watching participants run, that energy, you know, on site starts Wednesday and then Friday, but, but the emails with all those logistics, they start going out actually next Monday, so two weeks out, and then they, they continue on to race week as well. So first and foremost…

SHANE:
Are you trying to get people excited about looking at their email?

ALEX:
Yeah.

SHANE: Good job.

ALEX:
All that data will be there. And then, in addition, at the expo, those kind of those questions will be answered. If they're not answered completely in the emails, or they'll be re answered there. And so, yeah, people have a lot of questions. I you know, from a runner's perspective, it's like, it's bus loading, where to meet, where to park. We create busing maps. You know, parking maps on where people need to go, but parking busing start times are pretty standard. It's 7am for all races. Some people ask if they can drive to their start line up in the canyon. You cannot. We do not have that piece available. Yeah. Results things like that. For the most part. We outline most of those things in our in our FAQs, and then try to do our best to answer those.

TAYLOR:
What roads close down because of the Ogden marathon?

ALEX:
Yeah, so the big ones, I mean, the big one is, is Highway 39. That's Ogden Canyon; closes down from 5:30am to 1:30pm and it's pretty special. Outside of accidents and road work. It's the only time of year that that road closes down. In addition to that, Grant Avenue here by downtown, where we finish on 25th and Grant, that closes down all the way north to 18th [Street]. We have rolling closures on parts of Washington and some other areas here, and then up in Ogden Valley and Ogden Valley City, SR 158 closes down. [Highway] 39 going up South Fork Canyon is also closed, and there’s rolling closures open throughout the morning. So though we do impact the upper valley up there, we try to open those things up as quickly as we can.

TAYLOR:
Can you describe what's special about the route sounds like you're closing a pretty cool sounding canyon down. So what's different about this marathon when it comes to the routing compared to other larger marathons that are qualifying marathons?

ALEX:
Yeah. I mean, it's a, well, this, this is a Boston-qualifying route, like, this is a certified distance course. It runs down. It starts just below Causey Reservoir, if you're local and you know that it's cool. It runs down South Fork. It runs through Ogden Valley and the newly incorporated Ogden Valley City, which is pretty picturesque as you kind of traverse Pineview. We call it Ogden Spring Run-Off, or Utah's Spring Run-Off, I guess because it is kind of that kickoff canyon marathon for the year as well each year. And then we come down Ogden Canyon, which, again, currently has no, you know, no footpath or no means of hiking, riding up or down it. And so the Ogden marathon is pretty special in that it's really the only day of the year you can safely get down it, and then we follow the Ogden River all the way to the finish line. Other cool, unique thing that happens every year in the canyon while it's shut down is we have about 50 volunteers in there that pull about a ton of trash out of the river each year. And then our waste management partners come through with the dump truck and pick up all their their hard work that they pull out from 5:30 to 1pm each year.

SHANE:
Very awesome. And listening, listening to you rattle off the closures and roads. Clearly you're a man who has looked at many maps and had to fill out a lot of applications for permits, which I want to just speak really briefly, the machine that is behind the Ogden Marathon. I don't think people realize. The absolute amount of man hours that have to get thrown at an event like this. And I do believe that's kind of where the energy comes from. It's like, it's just, would you we want to speak to that, one of you guys, for a minute?

ALEX:
Yeah, I think that, you know, like, when you ask, what's special about the Ogden Marathon, like you can, you can feel it’s special. I've been a part of many other events, but a lot of that does come to the energy that is behind the race, you know. So Ogden Marathon is, is a city-owned event by Ogden City, and I think the energy kind of starts there. But just to put it in perspective, we have just under 1,000 volunteers that volunteer for the marathon over two days. That counts all our water stations along the course as well. We have about a little over 100 law enforcement officers that participate. That's Ogden City. That's Weber County Sheriff's Office. That's Utah Highway Patrol. They're using both motors, which are the motorcycles, and they're using vehicles to help, to help manage that. And yeah, it's a big effort. We're permitted by city, county and state level and on all fronts, like there's a ton of people that come into helping put this race on, and what's special about it is that many of them have been doing it for much longer than I have. There's a lot of people that I routinely work with that have been helping, like you, Shane, but that have been helping with the race for 20 years, law enforcement people as well, right? And so, as opposed to a race that might have a more private structure where you contract law enforcement officials, they're standing on the corner and they're just there for a certain time, we have community engagement from these law officials, and they're like calling out people by name. They're saying hi. They may have run the marathon two or three times before, and all of those things like lend themselves to it, right? And I don't know how many names I should throw out or not, but there's a guy we work with at the city. We work with many people at the city, but Monte Stewart. He helps us with a lot of the Ogden pieces of the race, and the things that he does to get the Ogden River Parkway ready are reflective of the fact that he's run the half marathon numerous times, right? And so it creates buy-in for this event that then kind of transmutes itself into that participant experience, I guess. Yeah.

SHANE:
So the energy we talk about, I think that the best place to feel it, it can be felt all along the course. There's people standing at the end of their driveways, ringing cowbells and handing out waters and whatever. But the place where it is concentrated I mentioned earlier is the finish line. I would say within those last couple blocks, probably 24th on into the finish. On 25th is just mayhem, usually for most of the race. Talk a little bit about the energy the finish line and what runners can experience there, and what spectators are going to experience there, and I'll jump in when I feel like it.

TROY:
Sure. That last block, really from 18th Street and Grant [Ave.], we start to build up what we call “Hoopla Stations,” and we have local organizations and just community supporters who show up and they create a lot of hoopla, and that we encourage them to make signs, dress up and have a lot of fun and get those runners down that final mile. It's that last mile. It's one mile straight down the road seems like it never ends. And so for those runners to have that extra energy boost, to get to that finish line come under the arch, is super empowering. So we do, we see people dress up like Star Wars characters and Super Mario and all kinds of fun different things along the way, and create really creative fun signs to bring that energy. So there's, you know, hundreds, hundreds, hundreds hundreds of people along those blocks. And as you get closer to the finish line, it becomes more dense. And then as they come through the finish line, it's truly just massive energy. We've got live music happening on the stage thanks to some RAMP grant opportunities that we've had. We have a whole free Finish Line Festival that's set up for the public to come to. And again, there's no charts. We've got face painters and characters on site, and we've got the live music happening. And then a bunch of other vendors are still there as well, helping engage the participants and their supporters, as well as just the, you know, people who are curious about what what this marathon is all about, and want to come down and have a good time. There's something for everybody down there, and that energy is contagious in a lot of ways.

SHANE:
Well, I will tell you what's brought me back to that finish line for 20 plus years now is you get to see the entire spectrum of human experience in a few hours. You see the highest of elations when people have accomplished something they thought they never I get choked up talking about it when they accomplished something that they never thought they could. And that energy hits off of you, but then you get absolute despair and agony. You get people who are losing like go just to the spaghetti legs and drop and you watch their fellow runners pick them up and help them across the line to make sure they get there.

ALEX:
Some of that's still the highest elation, too, though that's the double-edged sword of it is like it's not even sorrow. A lot of times with that, it's like they're still accomplishing something they didn't think they could do. And, yeah, but it's the full spectrum of emotions, right, that go along with that, yeah?

SHANE:
And I think that's what keeps me going, is that energy. There's just…it is a human thing that I think more than we've ever needed in our lives. We need right now is to come out and watch other humans celebrate and do something they thought they couldn't do.

ALEX:
Yeah, for real. And I think, you know, you obviously play, you play a big role in that at the end of the race for those people, right? You help draw them into the finish line. You help celebrate that moment. I do a little bit of announcing too. So I kind of understand that piece of it. It's a very important piece, you know. And I think bringing that participant through the finish line, helping them realize what they have achieved, which, which is their own personal goal. Whatever that may be, right is, is a very important piece to the race and and it's cool. So you know, from there that transitions to their kind of celebratory point, their refueling point, where they get food and stuff. But hopefully we're bringing in their family, their friends, and they get to watch them, and they also get to engage with that, that big festival piece that Troy's talking about, which includes all those free activations for youth. We have a rock climbing wall for youth as well that they can come. The really cool and fun part is, you know, we have a Kids K that starts at 12:30pm that is free, and we limit it to 500 youth, and they run just over half a kilometer. They basically run around the block, and they're led out by Ogden Police Department. And that's, like, that's, I mean, you know, being in the finish line there, that's, that's a big piece of energy each year. That's a ton of fun. And it's, it's, it's really cool, because it, it offers youth a chance to experience…

SHANE:
That same energy.

ALEX:
Yeah, experience that same energy, maybe witness how they might want to pursue goals, push themselves in the future and all that. And it's cool, you know, and kind of in that same token, one of the things we're trying out this year that we haven't done before is we've got a big like 10 by 16 foot screen, and we're going to have that adjacent to the stage, and we're going to have our audio company along the course. They're going to be filming the finish line the whole time live. They're going to film the half start area, which includes the full marathoners when they run through and they're going to they're going to film along the course as well. And so hopefully, if you come to the festival, whether you're related to a participant or not, you can actually, if you're not at the finish line itself, you can be in front of the live band and just like, catch those vibes.

SHANE:
I didn’t know you guys were doing the screen. That’s awesome.

ALEX:
Yeah, it's cool. It. I mean, we're saying things that we're pulling together for the first time, so I'm crossing my fingers that it all goes right, but it's going to be pretty cool.

SHANE:
Well, and I would say, any spectators that don't have the entire, you know, four or five hours to spend at the finish line, come watch that Kid's K because you'll see the same exact spectrum over 20 minutes. Those first kids that come in just like grit, gritting their teeth and sweating and running with their arms and legs flailing all the way down to the little three year olds at the end, getting dragged across by their parents crying. You get the same. An exact profile, as you do on the marathon in a microcosm. You know, 20 minutes. It's pretty awesome.

Well, I would say any future runners that want to run the marathon come run one of the most scenic and it's been rated one of the most scenic courses by like runners world and some top publications for years now, and it's best, best runner, or what you know, top marathon for first time marathon runners? What top runners for Boston Marathon? Because that slight downhill qualifiers, a lot of, lot of PR. A lot of PR is getting set on this course. So if you're a future runner, you'll be running through the most verdant green you've ever seen, through the valley and and down a canyon with a flowing river that is silent, that only for those six hours a year outside of the sound of footsteps hitting. It's not cars racing by and stuff like that. It's beautiful time to run. If you're a current year runner, I would say, check your emails, right? All those questions will be answered. We hope to see everyone at Expo, and if you're if you're a visitor or a community member, just come out and plug into the energy we keep talking about. I think that's kind of the takeaways I came away with. Taylor, anything else you want to add?

TAYLOR:
Oh, I think that's good. And covered a lot.

SHANE:
All right, Ogden Marathon coming at you May 16. You guys go to the GOAL Foundation or ogdenmarathon.com. to check it out, and we will see you there. Thanks for joining us.