I have slacked on bloggin the past while....mainly because running had not been going well. I have been battling with a knee injury for the past little while so the last three weeks I haven't really been running. I biked a few times...12 miles, 18 miles, 36 miles, 12 miles. This last week I ran 3 miles, and the week before that I ran 3 miles. So I hadn't done much running before the race.
The race started in salt lake and went to farmington. it was kind of fun to be wearing glow in the dark stuff. it wasn't so fun to hardly be able to see spectators and sometimes I would stumble on the ground when it raised or lowered at all. But overall, I have mostly good memories.
My mom ran it with me. I used my gps running watch, but it lost satellite a few times under overpasses.
The first few miles we did just over 9 minute miles and then we slowed a bit. My body was reacting surprisingly well to the amount of running i had not done. My knees hardly had ANY pain. What a miracle that was!
Trav and my dad were at mile 9. It was good to see them. he made me a sign. He is such a good support. I wish I could keep running just to have that all the time.
After I saw them my body started getting pretty tired and we slowed down a bit. At mile 11 i swallowed some water down the wrong pipe and had to stop for a few short seconds to cough, but then i kept going. my body just wanted to STOP. but I just pushed it. At mile 12 my mom said, its ok we can slow down if you need. we just need to finish. she could tell I was struggling...she could have left me in the dust many miles earlier. I realized we had 1.1 miles left and exactly ten minutes to reach my goal of 2:15. And I said, no we have exactly 10 minutes to run this mile! so, we took off. My mom had a burst of energy and was booking it. My bosy still was dragging but I was pushing with everything I had.
I hated the last mile. There were a lot of turns. tons of sprinklers and obstacles, and then the road to the finish line was just a bunch of little pebbles and rocks so every step i took I would just sink into the ground. It made for an uneventful finish. my mom and I held hands and she sort of pulled me along into the finish line.
my mom got third place in her age division...missing first by 61 seconds. if she would have left me she would have blown away the first place in her age by at least a few minutes. not bad for her first half marathon.
I was and still am very happy that I reached my goal, especially because i don't think I will be able to run another half marathon. I will have to stick to shorter distances unfortunately. we will leave the long mileages to my husband. | 