Timpanogos half Marathon... And Smashing my PR!!!!

The morning of my half marathon started out at 3:15 am. YIKES! That is so early! We drove up to the start and go in line for the bus. Luckily the line was really short, and not very long later.. we were on our way up to the start of the race. On our way up we were talking about our goal time. My previous race times were all in the 2:45 region.  I had a dream of 2:30, however I knew it was a long ways off. I have not trained well enough for that.

We got to the starting point at about 4:45 and settled in for the wait. We ate some breakfast.. said hi to some of my racing friends. Waited in line for the potties a few times... you know.. nervous pee pees. And before I knew it.. Race time was only a few minutes away. Not enough time to get my cell phone set up to my garmin account. :(  oh well... C'est la Vie 

Noel, Me and Dee at the starting line

Noel had a good ol' regular watch, so we could at least have an accurate time of how fast we were going. At the first mile, we were right above 10 minutes. That's fast!!!! I usually run a 12 minute mile. We hit mile 2 and we were going at a little under a ten minute mile. Miles 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8... all the same. We were burning it up. I have never ran that fast in my life. We averaged a below ten minute mile for the first 8 miles. That is monumental.

After that we hit a few hills, and the sun came out. Hot and uphill... my worse nightmare.  We started averaging around a 12 minute mile. At 11 miles I hit a huge wall and I could not go any more. Noel kept going and I pushed on the best I could. Right after the 11 mile mark, they handed out otter pops. It was hot, and I was so tired, and that otter pop sounded like the best food in the world. I ate a few bites and jogged on. Then.. Bam.. It hit me.  CRAMP! HOLY CRAMP! I have never had a cramp so bad in my life. Usually a cramp comes on just one side.. and I can tell it to shut up and keep going. This one hit on both sides.. my whole stomach was killing me.

I looked down at my time, and saw that I had been running over just over 2 hours. That meant that I could hobble to the finish line and still make my goal. I hobbled on the best I could and I would jog for as long as possible. The last two miles were so hard. I knew it was going to be close.. I might make it just after the 2:30 mark.

I turned the last corner and saw the finish line.. and the time on the board was 2:29.30 and I gave it all I had. And I crossed the finish line before the 2:30 mark. Saying that I was trilled was an understatement. My far off dream came true.. even though I had to walk most of the last two miles.

My official bib time was 2:29.08. That means I beat my PR by 15 minutes and 36 seconds!! THATS HUGE!!! Here are the times from all of my races.

Halloween half 2010:    2:45.09
Thanksgiving point half 2011:  2:44.51
Halloween Half 2011:    2:44.44
Timpanogos Half 2012:  2:29.08

This girl right here is very proud of herself!! That was such a great race! Noel has the pictures from the finish.. so I will have to get them and post them later. 

Hope you are all having a great weekend!!

Fires and the 4th of July

Tuesday I had every intention of going to a spin class right after work and then running a few miles before bed. All of that went out of the window when my husband called me and let me know that his brother was being evacuated due to a fire that started on the mountain right behind his house. As soon as we got off of work, we drove right up to his house to help get things packed up and moved around for them.

Luckily the fire ended up staying just far enough away  However, my brother in law and my husband are so stubborn, that we did not actually leave their house at all. We ate a yummy grilled chicken salad with strawberry and avocado, and watched the planes come in and dump the retardant. The fire was within a quarter of a mile of the house, but it was moving sideways on the mountain, not down the mountain towards the house. We did have everything packed up so if the winds shifted we could be out of there within minutes.

 Here are the boys watching out the window and taking pictures of all of the awesome planes that are dropping retardant. My husband is on the left and my brother in law is on the right. See the pain of glass above my brother in laws head... Yeah.. its all red and smokey.. those are flames.

 Here is a picture I took right when we got there. There is their backyard, a house, a street and then the fire. The plane is dropping the retardant and I will admit... it was freakin cool to watch. 

We ended up staying at their house until around 10:30 at night. So no working out for me that night. Luckily I went in the morning.


Wednesday morning I got up at 5:30 am to go and run a 5k that I had signed up for.  Parking for this race was AWESOME! I drove right there, and was able to walk around at the starting line and get all pumped up!

The race started at 7 am and I ran the first mile down the path of the parade. So people were yelling and cheering you on. They had music playing. It was awesome.

We then turned onto a little side street and thats when things got crappy. The road was too small for that many runners and with so many people walking, you could not get through. The entire race slowed to a walk. At first I was super upset. But then I realized that this was just for fun. I needed to enjoy myself and realize that I was outside on a beautiful day. It was not hot yet, and  I was healthy enough that I could be outside doing this run.

About another mile into it, we turned onto a bigger street and I was able to jog to the finish. At the finish line we were given a metal and a water bottle. Wow! That's a lot of swag for a race. We got a shirt when we picked up our packets. I have ran half marathons that did not give you as much stuff as this race did. No wonder everyone and their dog was entered into this race.

The worst part of the race was the traffic! It took me about 6 minutes to drive down to the race, and almost an hour to drive back home. When I got home, this is what I found...   Yep, Tye and Sheisa... still in bed. Both of them were sleeping. However, Sheisa woke up right before I could click a picture. The lucky little devils!

 

It was around 9 am now, and since I had been up for over three hours, and walked/jogged 3 miles and sat in traffic for an hour, I am STARVING! I kicked Tye out of bed and told him to take me to breakfast! Yum!! French toast and bacon and eggs from Mimis. It is one of my all time favorites.

 

The rest of the day was pretty relaxed. We went and saw a movie in Salt Lake and went out to dinner. It was great getting to spend so much time with Tye.

Happy 4th of July to everyone!!