The Big Race

On Saturday me and Marcus, along with Katie and Elise and their husbands ran the Top of Utah Logan half marathon.  We have all been looking forward to this (or dreading it?) all summer long and the day was finally here.  This was my third time doing this race, and for once I wasn't crazy nervous.  Even though I hadn't trained as much as I had wanted to, I knew that it would be fine and I would be able to finish the race.  I had a goal to beat 1:50 but was nervous that wouldn't happen, so I wasn't worrying about it too much.

Elise, Me and Katie waiting for the race to start at the top.  It was chilly, but not freezing, and like usual it was pretty chaotic and frantic up there.  Everyone gets nervous and the gun goes off and there are thousands of people running all around you.  You have to maneuver your way around everyone and I kept thinking I was going to lose these guys.

I absolutely LOVED running with these two.  What is better than a good race alongside people you love?  Mike and Marcus were ahead of us, and Mike was out of our sight pretty quick.  Me, Lise and Katie ran together for the first five miles down the beautiful canyon.  I caught back up to Marcus and was happy to see he was still doing good.  I was so nervous for him because he had hurt his Achilles earlier in the summer and had only ran for the two weeks prior to the race.

The final 5 miles or so I ran alone, and I felt so good and so happy.  I felt like I was able to push myself harder than I ever have before, and felt so good doing it.  I was so grateful that I could be running and couldn't help but feel blessed to have a healthy, functioning body that was allowing me to do this.  I have never felt that as much as I did for those final miles and it made the race really great.  I finished in 1:48 and was thrilled.  All six of us finished within only 15 minutes of each other too which I thought was so awesome.

I was so proud to run this race with Marcus, Katie + Nate, and Elise + Mike.  What a fun, neat experience.  Tierra and her boyfriend and my mom and dad were there to cheer us on as we crossed the finish line, so it really was a family event.  And even though I felt so sick all day Saturday and Marcus couldn't even move on Sunday, we look forward to the next time we'll run this race.