Half Marathon

It has been a few months, and who knows if anyone even reads my blog anymore, but here it goes anyway!

 

I did it! I ran the Salt Lake City Half Marathon!

I'm going to babble some (I actually mean a lot). Forgive me.

Training sucked. Not going to lie. I hated having to work a run into my schedule. There was never a good time to run. In the mornings, I had to do it before the boys woke up, which was fine, but it also meant I had to do it on the treadmill since Spencer has to leave so early to drive to school. Well, I hate the treadmill, so that was kind of rough on my consistency. Or, I had to run during naptime, which meant I had to go all morning without showering, and then run, and shower in the middle of the day, and not get any housework/other things done during naptime. OR.... I had to run after the kids were down for bed, which cut into my relaxing/me time. Essentially, it was difficult to find the time and motivation to run. But, nonetheless, I did, because I paid that darn $75 and I was running that half marathon. I had no choice. Which is exactly why I signed up to do it in the first place, because I knew it would force me to get some exercise! Oh, ps. I ran my long runs on Saturday's when Spencer was home, so that helped, because I just can't run more than 4 miles on the treadmill.

 

This was my first race EVER. The week before,I had ran 11 miles, but I only ran 4 miles the week of my race haha. I knew I'd be okay, but that's about how my training was too (not very consistent, therefore I probably didn't train the BEST). The night before the race, I was so stinking nervous! I was just so afraid I wouldn't be able to do it. AND I knew it was supposed to rain, AND aunt flo decided to pay a visit (tmi, kinda sorry), so I just didn't know how I was going to handle all of that. I am a big whimp of the cold, so I was expecting me to just hate the entire race, and never want to race again.

 

The next morning, me, my sister Amy, and my sister-in-law, got on trax at 5:30, I believe? Can't remember exactly. Anyway, it was raining, and freezing, and windy, and miserable. The ride on trax was nice, because we were the first passengers, so we got seats, and got to get nice and warm while we rode them to SLC. At each stop, tons of runners loaded the train. It was so exciting to me to see all of these people heading to this race! I was getting really nervous at this point.

Finally, we arrived at U of U, and it was raining, and cold and windy still. Poop. My sweet sister bought me a poncho, so I was very grateful for that (thanks again Am!). We only had about 20-30 minutes til the race started.

 

We knew we didn't want to start when the actual race started (your time doesn't start until you cross the start line), because there was going to be so many people, you'd be running foot-to-heel for quite a while. So we watched the huge crowd take off instead, and that was so fun to see! Holy cow, there was so many people!! This picture, honestly does not do it justice. It was crazy! It looked like this for several minutes. We think we heard there was over 7,000 registered! That inclusdes the half and full marathon, which all of the runners started at the same time.

 

It rained the. whole. time! Some times it was just a light sprinkle, other times I was having a hard time seeing, because so much water was dripping down my face.

It was so cool to see all of these people who had trained for this race. I saw a guy at one point, who had to be at least over 300 pounds, and he was running the FULL marathon! Amazing! Good for him, right? I also saw a father running while pushing his son, who is confined to a wheelchair, and his shirt on the back said, "I Run For Bart". Little kids were running! I'm bad at age estimates, but maybe 9 or 10 years old? So cool. Old ladies and old gentlemen. I mean, it was a very diverse group, and it was honestly so inspiring to see all of these people running!

 

My sister and I stayed pretty much next to each other the entire race. We just both had the same comfortable pace, so it worked out. Shana though, is so speedy, we lost her after the first mile! We couldn't find her after the race either, to take a picture.

 

Surprisingly, I felt great pretty much the entire race. The only thing was the rain and cold. Physically and mentally, I felt awesome. I was just having so much fun, which sounds weird considering what I was doing, but I was. Plus, it went fast! I wasn't like dreading the next mile, or the next 6 miles, it just went pretty fast.

 

Spencer came up to see me finish, and I'm so glad he did. He was a great support through this. If there were days when I just really didn't want to train, he held me to it. He also helped me out with the boys, so I could get some training in. Thanks a bunch to my hunny!

So, as I was nearing the finish line, I was looking for him, and luckily I saw him right as I was passing him, or I would have felt sad that I didn't get to see him as I ran the last few yards.

I look funny, I know. Whatev.

 

We did it!! Again, it was so awesome, and if you have considered running, do it. I hated running, but now I have learned that it is something that does me a whole lot of good in so many different ways. Honestly. I feel great.

After the race, I was pretty dang sore. Walking down stairs was a killer. My knees felt like they might just pop off or something. They hurt. I was still in awe/shock that I actually did it, and better than I thought I would, too, btw. Under 2.5 hours. I was planning on running it in 2.5 or longer. I'm slow, don't judge. Which brings me to my next point: I am going to run another one this fall or late summer. My goal is to run it under 2 hours. I'm not sure which one I'm going to do yet, I'll let you know ;) My sister is probably going to run it with me again, too, so I'm excited about that! Anyway, yay for running and meeting goals. What a high.