pasta dinner the night before

my biggest fans

mile 23 and dying of HEAT

right before the finish line

sporting my medal

love them!
I honestly don't even know where to begin with blogging about this marathon. When I found out I got into the St. George marathon I cried and I am pretty sure they weren't happy tears. This is definitely something I have always wanted to do, but something I didn't know if I could do. So after taking 10 deep breaths I started training. The training wasn't bad at first but then the longer the miles got the more intense the training was. It was definitely more time consuming then I thought it would be. I cried after many runs wondering how in the world I was going to make it. Then for one of my 20 mile runs I ran from my moms house in Alpine all the way to my house, 21 miles. After that run I felt more confident but still super nervous. Tiffany (my training partner) hurt her foot the week of the race and thought she might have to pull out. I was freaking out. I didn't want to do this alone. Luckily she was able to run and I was soooo grateful. The thought of getting on that bus at 5am alone was enough to send me over the edge. The morning of the race started great. When I met up with Tiffany I was feeling more excited then nervous. The bus ride the 26.2 miles to the starting line was also very exciting. Everyone seemed happy! The starting line was like nothing I had ever seen before. There were runners everywhere. The line to the potty's were long. We waited in line to potty went, then got back in line to go again. haha Yes the nerves were starting again. When the gun went off I was still in line to potty, which was fine cause my chip didn't start until I crossed . The first few miles were CRAZY!!! There were so many people you couldn't really even run. It finally started thinning out a little bit and I felt great. I lost Tiffany on mile 4 but was still feeling pretty confident. I saw my bro in law Carson right before the first big hill. He and his family were there cheering and it really did help. Mile 7 to 14 was pretty much up hill. there were a few downs but it definitely felt like I was going up most of time. I still felt great. But then it started to get SOO hot. I started to feel a little over heated. They had misters set up for us to run through and that did help but the heat was super hard for me.I tried to do all my runs early in the am when it was cool, so around mile 18 I started wishing I would have trained more in the heat. GRRR Then around mile 20 my left knee started hurting so bad. I had to stop at all the aid stations to get bengay rubbed on it. I was definitely disappointed, but the only way I could keep going was to have the bengay. I knew my family would be waiting for me on mile 23 so I just kept thinking just make it to there. The first person I saw was my bro in law Tipper and as soon as he said my name I started to cry. I was happy to finally see someone I knew but so hot and tired the emotions just kept coming. Then I saw my kids cheering and holding up their signs. I tried not to cry because I didn't want them to worry. I loved seeing my fam and it was definitely the motivation I needed to keep moving. The last 3 miles were so hard mentally. I could hear everyone cheering at the finish line but It seemed to take forever getting there. When I finally crossed all my family was there cheering and it was one of the best moments of my life. I had finally made it, all 26.2 miles! They last few miles probably weren't pretty and my overall time was a little disappointing but I made it. I did it and it felt so good. When I got home Sunday night I signed my self up for next years! Now I know what its like, I want to do it better, faster ..... so here's to another year of training.