Utah Valley Marathon

My cousin Holly invited me to run the Utah Valley Marathon with her months ago. She decided she was going to come up from California and stay a whole week for the race. I was so excited! The day before the race we wanted to take the kids to do something fun and get our minds off what was a head of us, so we went to Summerfest.

The kids had a blast riding all the little carnival rides and we enjoyed the local booths.



We also went to the zoo while Holly was in town. We were lucky enough to meet up with some of my other cousins, which was awesome! I wish everyone lived closer!

This was the best picture I think any of us got while we were there. We had some busy kids! But they had fun. Sequoia still talks about Owen and Audrey.

Saturday, June 11th, was the big day. I hardly slept the night before because 1) I was worried I wouldn't wake up to meet the bus at 4am and 2) I knew I needed to be mentally prepared. I kept thinking about all the things I've done in my life that were harder than this. I feel like I had quite a list, after all this was just running(I don't think that anymore). The morning of the race I felt great. I purposely left my Ipod home because I knew Holly was in better shape than me and I REALLY wanted to stay with her so I figured it would be motivation. We drove to the buses and started up the canyon. I could tell Holly didn't feel good, we kept telling ourselves it was nerves but when she puked twice on the bus, I think we were both worried. I felt like we got off to a great start. I was feeling good but Hol wasn't. We stopped at the bathrooms at around mile 5 and thought things were looking up, though I wasn't planning on stopping at all. The next two miles went well but between mile 7 and 8 Holly had had it. She was so done and I could tell she couldn't go another step, if she could have she would have. I felt so bad leaving her, especially knowing she wanted this probably more than I did but I was feeling so good and had a feeling I'd slow down in a bit anyway. So on I went. I felt awesome and was taking it all in until about mile 13. I saw the starting point for the half and I could help but think, "I'm only half way there" and "If I had just signed up for the half I'd be done already." I was doing great on time and was way a head of the time I'd gotten when I'd ran a half marathon a few months earlier. I calculated I'd be well ahead of my 5 hour goal time. Well about mile 16ish I was in a lot of pain. My legs were thobbing, mentally I was drained and to be honest I was kinda bored. I kept trying to push through, though I'd slowed way down. I also kept thinking Holly was probably right behind me and if I slowed enough she'd catch up. My legs just ached, something that's never happened to me before. I tried to walk it out but walking felt the same if not worse than running and I REALLY didn't want to walk so I just kept running-- slowly. I stopped once to try to stretch and see if that helped and I must have looked pretty bad. An older man stopped and our conversation went like this:

him: "are you in pain?"

me: "um, yeah!"

him: "you want something for that?"

me: (knowing I probably wasn't going to make it feeling the way I was, and feeling confident in my knowledge of street drugs) "what do you have?"

him: "IB brofin"

me: "yes please!"

He then proceeded to unwrap a small bindle of tin foil. I was grateful I can fairly certainly identify harmful drugs and was sure it was what he said it was. After I took them I felt fantastic! Well, relatively so. I was so mad I'd wasted so much time and just wanted to be done but I still had miles to go. About mile 23 I was mentally pretty down but the finish line was in sight. Just then my brother and sister pulled up and were cheering me on. My mom had sent them along the course because I had taken so long (sad) Em had ran the half earlier but jumped out and finished the last couple miles with me. It was so nice to have someone to talk to after hours of wandering down the course alone with no music. I picked up the pace and shortly after saw this:

My sweet cheering section. They had been waiting with all those kids for over an hour and were still happy to see me. Plus it was mile 26, I was almost there!

I was so happy to see them, and SO happy to be almost done!!!

I finished so strong thanks to this cute girl:

To be honest I'm proud of myself that I finished but I can't help but be disappointed in my time (just over 5hours). The whole way down I was swearing I would never register for even another 5k let alone another marathon but by Saturday night I had changed my mind. I know I'll do another one someday and learn from my mistakes. I did it!!!

PS: The sweet old man who saved me turned out to be the oldest marathon participant that day. He was 76 years old and has completed over 100 marathons. I saw him finish and it was the sweetest thing.

Also: Holly had been food poisoned the night before and medical picked her up shortly after I left her. My mom came and got her and she was sick for days. She recently completed her own marathon and finished way faster than our goal at 4hrs 22min!!! I'm so proud of her and can't wait to do another one together someday!