I'm a Marathoner...well 1/2 Marathoner

My sisters and cousins and I ran the Provo City Half Marathon and 5 K on April 4th 2009! It was a great weekend! Well the race itself was less than desirable, but the weekend as a whole was very memorable. 

This was my first big race and I had trained faithfully for 14 weeks (well really 16 since I started too early, I was a little over zealous). I had high hopes for the 1/2 marathon, but training in Florida for a race that was in Utah came back to bite me. I had been training in 70 degree weather to arrive in Utah with a bitter 29 degrees on race day. 

It snowed the whole race with mile 7 being the worst because the snow was moving horizontally into our faces the entire time. At mile 9 I started hyperventilating while I was crying because I couldn't run the whole thing. (Who knew running was so emotional, that wasn't the only time I cried during the race). So, I had to stop because my knee was killing me. I started running again after a short break and then met up with my sisters and dad at mile 10. 

Well I made it another 1/2 mile and my hip, knee and ankle were shooting pain with every hit of the pavement. Then my knee gave out and I could barely walk, Kelly was basically carrying me for a while. But freak I had already run 10 1/2 miles, I wasn't going to stop now! So reluctantly I walked the last 2 1/2 miles to finish my 1/2 marathon. It was great to have the support of my sisters and cousins to help get me through it.

So my first big race didn't go at all how I had planned, but I'm not giving up...I'll start training for the next 1/2 marathon this month! My new plan is to run faster so that I won't have to run so long! Oh, and I'm going to run it down here so that I can actually finish while running the entire race. 

P.S. We all wore tutu's because we're "tutu fast"! EVERYONE loved them. We got comments on them all throughout the race. Even the guys liked them. I'll think we'll keep them around and use the tutu's for our next family race.