The Canyonlands Half Marathon

Being a smart & sensible person, I thought it would be a great idea to sign up for a half-marathon. I also thought it'd be a great idea to rope some others into it. I got my brother's wife, Tina to train for it; also my friend Jen Davis & her husband, Jeff to go (for Jeff it wasn't a big deal as he's already run lots of full marathons). We decided to rent a condo in Moab & go down for the weekend, maybe doing a little hiking & what not...hmmm not quite. I started doing cross fit (which I love) November of 2010, but only ran once, maybe twice a week. I was thinking since cross fit was doing such a great job kick my booty into shape, I figured it'd be enough. So the day of the race, I was completely amped-up to run. Little did I know, we'd spend time shivering in the cold, waiting for the race to start. They had to bus us up the canyon to the starting point...and that's where we spent TWO HOURS waiting & waiting before they'd let us run! It was so awful! Even though I was wearing a jacket & pants, it was in no way near good enough to keep me from being cold. My fingers started to turn purplish-blue!! They had no heaters to stand around or anything to keep warm. It seem so unorganized with everyone milling about waiting & freezing to death! Finally we were able to start running. I didn't de-thaw from being cold until mile 6, which wasn't horrible to deal with, but that's when the ankle pain began. (Tina & Jeff shot off the starting line super fast & were long gone.) Jen & I were keeping the same pace, but I told her to leave me behind & to not let me slow her down. I have no idea why my ankle started hurting. I had done long runs in practice (longest was nine miles) & I never had any trouble with my left ankle. I didn't want the wagon that sweeps up the stragglers to get me, so I just ground out the race, stopping only once-in-awhile for water. The miles kept getting longer & longer. At mile 9, I was thinking how horrible this race was & I couldn't get it done soon enough. They had no mile marker at mile 12, & with me feeling so horrible, I was not happy that I didn't know how close I was to the end (you had to go around a corner before you could see the finish line)! Then about 1/2 mile before the finish line, my legs literally stopped working. It was like my muscles were done moving for the day. I had to stop & shake my legs out to get them working again. After I crossed the finish line, I thought, "I never want to do that again" (even though I had signed up for a second 1/2 marathon with Meriann Parker the same time I had signed up for the Canyonlands 1/2 Marathon, so I was planning on running another a month later. Which I didn't end up running because there was a huge snow storm the night before the race & there was slush & ice everywhere. I even had Kevin drive me all the way done to the race, but when I saw the course, I refused to run it. I DID NOT want to freeze like I did for the Moab half marathon. I truly would've run it had the weather not been so awful! Poor Meriann, she still ran it!!!) & "I can't imagine only being half way done if I was doing a full marathon". There were all these booths & activities to do after the race, but all I wanted to do was go back to the condo & take a relaxing bath. I made sure I rolled out my muscles & really stretched because I didn't want to feel horrible the next day. And there would be no hiking that weekend! All in all, I still LOVE to run, but I want to keep it at 5-6 miles....thirteen point two miles once was enough for me!

Hey look at me crossing the finish line first! Boy am I a fast runner! Oh wait, yeah, I could barely make it across the finish line!

Top left & bottom right are Jeff Davis crossing the finish line. Bottom left is Janet King (our neighbor). She had just had a baby & couldn't run it, but Ray, her husband did.

Poor Jen! She said that running the half was horrible!

Bottom left is Tina & she felt the same way as Jen...that the race was horrid!

Then there's me struggling to cross the finish line at about 2 hrs & 44 minutes!

LITTLE MISSES

Having Marley & Grace are so much fun! I really hope that they will play together well when they are older! Having a sister that you are close to is a WONDERFUL thing!!