Zaylie Paras entered Friday’s Deseret News Pioneer Day Marathon with few expectations for where she would finish. She knew her fitness was where she wanted it to be, but she is not as seasoned in the event and had only run one other marathon this year.
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That marathon was much smaller than the Deseret News’ race, and she knew the field Friday would be larger and more competitive.
“I really just wanted to have fun today,” said Paras. “I knew my fitness was there, so I said, ‘Let’s go out with the front people and just see what happens.’”
The result was Paras leading most of the race and crossing the finish line in 2:50.51, well ahead of the rest of the women’s field for the victory.
Jennifer Smith (3:03.05) and Laura Berglind (3:03.51) rounded out the top three.
Paras was totally fine with flying under the radar coming into the race, as the former Salt Lake Community College and Riverton High competitor had stepped away from running for a bit before finding a renewed love and competitive spirit for it.
“I’m so grateful I got back into running while I was at Utah State because I took a year off after Salt Lake Community College,” Paras said. “Luckily, I found this great group, the Logan Track Club we called ourselves, and I owe everything to them for helping me fall in love with running again. I love doing these races now.”
Paras also credited her former SLCC teammate Grace Tipton, who helped her carry over her training this summer when she moved back to Salt Lake.
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“I think the summer has been a bit more inconsistent, but Grace really pushed me because we are competitive and have just a good training dynamic together,” Paras said.
“Grace couldn’t run today with me like planned but next time we’ll run together.”
The other piece for Paras was that Friday’s race was a sort of a goodbye race to Utah for her, as she’s headed to Northern Arizona University in the fall for graduate school.
“I’ve lived here my whole life and it’s going to be a huge transition for me to move to Arizona,” Paras said. “It means so much to me, to have all of the people who have helped me with this whole build and helped me get to this point, for me to do this today.”
It was evident Paras is leaving a community behind who had no doubt she could win. Her boyfriend Tayshaun Ogomo, who ran the 10K, was the first person to hug her and remind her, “I told you you were going to win,” while her dad John who was in tears when he shared how proud of her he was.
“Today really was a lot of fun,” Paras said. “It was hard at first, and I reminded myself I’ve trained in hotter conditions and to just keep going.”
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For complete race results, click here.