Half Marathon

Over a year ago my brother in law Jared asked if I wanted to run a half marathon with him and I flat out laughed at him. Me? Run? Hahaha that was funny. At the start of this year when I was working out on my own at the gym I decided to take on the challenge.  Never in my entire life have I been a runner. In fact I have always hated running. I dreaded the few days a year in PE class when they would make us run a mile. When we started training I could barely make it a mile and a half before I felt like dying. Soon enough I sucked it up, put my mind on a goal and went for it. It was hard, challenging, tiring and I wanted to give up many times.  I finally learned how to push myself farther and harder then I ever had before. I realized that its all mental. Even when my body would beg me to stop because my legs or knees hurt like crazy, or I was bored or tired, I learned how to push past that and keep going.  After about 4 months of training we made it to the race. The energy and atmosphere of all the people there about to do the same crazy thing we were made it kind of exciting. I was extremely nervous for the actual "race."  I put it in quotes because I was not "racing" anyone. My ultimate goal was just to make it to the end. My other goal was to be able to jog the entire 13.1 miles and to get under 3 hours. We were nervous about the altitude change from Vegas to Park City, but luckily it really didn't seem to bother us much. The weather was absolutely gorgeous up there. It was a bit cold when we started but we warmed right up, and it was warm when we finished. The trail we followed was beautiful and it helped to slightly keep our mind sane. It was much more entertaining then running laps on the track at the gym.  It was frustrating when people that were speed walking parts of the marathon and it seemed like it would take me forever to catch up to them. Phillip and Jared were pretty far ahead of me for the entire race. At about 7 miles the course looped around and we headed back. I saw Jared and Phillip while they were already heading back and I still had yet to loop around.  Somehow when I run my longer distances the last mile and a half or so I am finally able to pick up my pace. This is usually when people are losing all their energy and slowing down. So because of this I was actually able to catch up to Phillip at the last mile. I was so excited! Haha. Once we saw that finish line we gave it our all (which by that point was basically nothing) and run through the finish line together. Luckily you couldn't see the finish line till the last maybe 100 yards of the run. If I has seen it any earlier I probably would have tried to push it too hard from too far and not made it to the end. :) The whole thing was a very neat experience and I am very glad that we did it.  It was really cool having something to work towards and for and then the feeling of accomplishment when we crossed the finish line was amazing.  Even though my time was super slow I am just proud that I finished. Here's to our next half marathon! :)

                                                    Before the marathon....nervous as can be

                                                                              Stretching....

                                                                              Brothers

                Looking kinda tired...didn't sleep well the night before and the race started at 6:45 AM

                                                                ....And we're off......

              There was a lot of time in between...but there we are coming down the finish line...

                                                  

                                                                           WE DID IT!!!!!

                                                                  We ALL did it!!! YAY!!!