St. George Marathon 2011 - Celebrating Legends

Introducing St. George Marathon Historian

Mike Schramm was born in Las Vegas, Nevada, but moved to Southern Utah at age 10, where his love of Utah's Dixie began. He currently lives part time in St. George and also in Las Vegas. His involvement and passion in running began in 1994 in an effort to stay physically fit. Mike has run 27 marathons with 11 of those run in St. George to date, including a personal record time ran in 2000 of 2:39:13 finishing 14th overall. His strong interest in statistics, history, and running led him to develop the marathon legend list. He is married to a marathon runner, Erica, and he has two daughters, Stefani and Sydni.

During 2011, we will have our 100,000th finisher, so to select only 50 men and 50 women and call them legends, was quite the challenge. But in the end, we truly feel like these individuals are deserving of this recognition.

Beginning April 13th we will reveal the legend with two men and two women listed each week leading up to the race. A short biography listing their accomplishments through the years will be included. The #1 and #2 male and female will be named in the week before the 2011 race.

To start this process today, we will list separately, 35 male and 35 female who didn't quite make the Legend list, but are deserving of an Honorable Mention. You can view the list here.

Legend Parameters

By Mike Schramm

The process to determine the well deserved title of a "Legend" for the St. George marathon began during the summer of 2010. I wanted to obtain the race results of all the St. George marathons, from 1977 to the current year. Once I was able to gather each yearly result, I put together a list of the top 1000 times for all the years. As I put together that list, I was amazed at some of the consistent performances that were done by some of the participants. I decided at that point, for my own purposes, to determine which runner should be considered the greatest St. George marathoner. That led me to not just name one runner, but a list of 50, both male and female.

I had to come up with some characteristics that would give me a basis of a "Legend". I immediately decided it had to be a combination of speed along with longevity, but gave more credibility to speed. However, there are participants who had one remarkably fast marathon, but weren't named a "legend". Also, there are participants that have run 25+ marathons, but also, were not named a "legend".

The possibility of a "legend" title was increased when considering the overall St. George marathon resume based upon:

(items listed first are most important)

• *Winning the overall title
• *Top 10 finish for an individual year
• *Winning the overall masters title
• *Times in the list of top 1000 times overall
• *Years running the race
• *Age group performance
• *Age graded results

  A definition of Age Graded results is as follows:

  "Your marathon finish time adjusted to that of an open division (18-35) participant using a factor for age and gender. Thus, the times for women and older participants are adjusted downward, while the times for most open division participants remain the same. The basis of age graded results is based on the 2006 age grading tables developed by the World Masters Athletics."

  Of course, the list is subjective. The overall accomplishments of a participant can be evaluated differently by different people. I have reviewed the list with other individuals that are experienced in marathon running. The list was reviewed by the staff of the St. George marathon, including Kent Perkins, who has been the Race Director for the marathon for over 25 years. Special thanks for helping gather the results to Carlene Garrick, Ross Decker, Steffen Schneider, and Diane Carling.