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BLUFF, San Juan County — Ogden natives Joseph and Rayma Markland are one race away from completing a race in each of Utah’s 29 counties.
The Marklands said they met in the mid-'70s when they both worked at McKay-Dee Hospital in Ogden. Rayma Markland worked as a medical laboratory scientist and Joseph Markland was working as a physician's assistant. They have now been married for 39 years and both just recently retired.
The 65-year-olds took up running about 15 years ago and have since run races all over the country. Running a race in every Utah county is a goal they came up with around four or five years ago, according to the couple.
“We talked to a lot of people and we hadn’t really talked to anyone who’d done that,” Joseph Markland said.
During their goal, the Marklands said they have run a wide variety of races ranging from marathons to triathlons to 5Ks.
“It has been so fun,” Rayma Markland said. “We have met so many people and done so many fun races.”
Among their favorite races was the Zombie Run at the Fremont Indian State Park in Sevier County. Rayma Markland said that people in the crowd threw skeleton heads at the runners while zombies chased them.
“We ran in Beaver County in a town called Greenville,” Joseph Markland. “We set a course and my wife started out before I did. I was just chugging along and I looked up and saw that she had stopped… I looked up and a dairy farmer had let all these cows out on the road and the whole road was blocked with hundreds of dairy cows. He got them by us, but then maneuvering past their droppings was challenging.”
From Beaver to Box Elder County, the Marklands have run them all and are just one county away from completing their goal. Their final race is a 5K in Bluff in San Juan County on Nov. 6.
“It’s going to be fun on that day to cross that finish line and know that we actually did this,” Joseph Markland said.
The Marklands encourage people of all ages to try and run a race in each county in Utah.
“It’s a beautiful state and we’d like to challenge people to try to do this, especially if you’re older like us,” Joseph Markland said. “We’re not great runners, but we get it done.”
What’s next for the couple? Rayma Markland said that they have plans to run a 5K in Paris the week after their race in San Juan County. But anywhere they go, they said, they will find a race to run.
