Somehow, I did it! I completed a marathon...26.2 miles. Jenny convinced me back in March to begin training for this race. She tried to convince all six of us sisters to run the Top of Utah Marathon together.
However, due to injuries and distances too far to travel, Jenny and I were the only ones at the starting line on race day. Actually, we weren't even at the starting line when the gun went off. We were up at the port-a-potties. Since the race was chip timed, we weren't too worried about hurrying. The group of mountain men who had stayed the night at the top of the canyon were kind enough to give us our own gun shot start. After waiting over an hour in the dark and cold after being dropped off by the bus, we decided that next year we are going to make friends with these mountain men and camp with them the night before so we can sleep in and have a fire to stand by to keep warm. At least we were able to find an old tarp to wrap around ourselves.
I really enjoyed the race overall. They are right when they say training for a marathon is much harder than actually running a marathon. And I didn't even train like I should have either, which probably comes as no surprise for those who really know me. Before this race, 13 miles was the farthest I had run. I was able to run a good pace until about mile 16, then I made Jenny go ahead of me and I slowed down a bit. Around mile 19 or 20 I began alternating my running and walking. By this time, most of my muscles had hurt like never before. I would try to find new ways to run that would use different muscles. I looked absolutely ridiculous but I didn't care at that point.
I was so grateful for Marc and his mom, sister, and niece who were there to cheer for me and walk/run with me for even a short while on a couple of points of the course. Caitlin, my sister-in-law ran the whole last mile with me. This was good because by then I was a feeling a little insane.
When I saw the finish line all I could do was smile. I couldn't believe I had done it. I'm so grateful for Jenny for getting me started in the first place and running the long runs with me for the last month. I had decided a long time ago that I did not like running and that I could still be a good person even if I never did a marathon. Yet, I have really started to enjoy running and plan to continue doing half marathons and perhaps another marathon sometime. Codi was also a great motivator the beginning of this summer. We did our first half marathon in July (which felt harder than the marathon). I don't think I could have finished that race if it wasn't for my amazing friend Megan Rowe, who stayed with us the whole race and paced us.
This is beginning to sound like an award ceremony speech, but I do have to recommend Christopher McDougall's Born to Run. Reading this book helped me to learn how to run just for joy of it as well as getting rid of my fear of failing.
It was a miracle I finished but I'm glad I started in the first place.
And I just had to post this photo of the lady in the yellow shirt. It just makes me laugh to myself every time I see it.
