Salt Lake City 1/2 Marathon

In December, my amazing friend, Caryn asked me if I would be interested in running the half marathon with her and her sister and whoever she could round up. At first, I just laughed, but after looking over the training schedule and the route, I made the decision that I was going to try and do it. And then of course, I convinced my dad to do it too. So after 15 weeks of running in the early morning hours, on the treadmill and on Saturdays outside, with an amazing group of women... Today we ran the Salt Lake City 1/2 Marathon. We had a great run. I did reach a point at about 7 miles, where I thought that a 10k was probably more my race. But aside from a few brief stops for water etc, we kept picking up our feet and somehow they kept moving us forward. We didn't see many of the women that I trained with along the route... there were 3819 people who finished the half marathon... not to mention all of the other races running part of the same course today, but Dad and I were able to stick together. In the end, we were pretty happy with our time and our pace. We finished the 13.1 mile race in 2:18:41, which had us at an average mile pace of 10:35. Not bad for first timers, and since I was never a distance runner in my previous life, my goal was to finish.

Here is a shot of the back of us.

And at 8 miles, we were actually still able to raise our arms and wave, so I think that was a good sign.
Here is Dad at the end of the race. With all of the work that Dad was doing on his house, he didn't get as many chances to train and get in shape, but he still did an amazing job. There were only 29 people in Dad's age bracket and he beat 9 of them. Way to go Dad!
Here is me at the end of the race... Let's just say that I felt better while I was running, than when we stopped. I got pretty light headed, and then on the trax ride home, ended up having to whip off my running shirt so that I could throw up into it. Yeah... that's right, I now have a most-embarrassing moment of puking on a super crowded train to go along with pivotal moment of finishing my first half marathon. I guess that is just how it goes.
I think the most important part of these last few months is what I have learned about myself and others.

1. A group of determined and supportive women can accomplish anything they want to.

(Thanks to Caryn, Stephanie, Paula, Martie and Jasmine for being such amazing Saturday running mates. Great job on your races girls. Thanks to Shelby, McCall and Jessi for showing up to the gym in the early morning hours or joining on Saturday runs even when you didn't have a to train for a race. Having your support was so great.)

2. Caleb really loves me, even after all this time. He was so encouraging to me as I trained and especially on Saturday long runs, he was often up really early with the boys on his own... he is always so supportive and amazing... Even when I was limping around the rest of the day. It was so great to have such a cheering squad.

3. Everything is better with a friend.

4. Being in shape again feels great! Even though my goal was just to run, I can't believe how much more muscle I am carrying around, and I actually lost 5 pounds without even trying to.

5. Sometimes I just have to make a decision and then do it, no excuses. I have forgotten what I can do based just on pure willpower.

As of today, I have run 208 miles so far this year.

And for all of you who might be thinking about running a race of any length- DO IT! You might be tired sometimes, but you certainly won't look back and think "Man, I wish I hadn't finished that race." :-) Thanks to all of our cheering fans.