my first marathon

Since forever and a day ago I've wanted to run a marathon.

A few years back I sort of ran the Ogden half marathon with my friend Nicole. Sort of? Yes. I never actually signed up and it sold out. So technically I ran the race but I was not an official participant. About the race....it was amazing! Part of that, I'm sure of it, was because it was a blast running with Nicole. But more than the runner buddy it was the most beautiful and wonderful course I had ever run. I vowed that if I ever ran a marathon it would be Ogden hands down!

So after I had Will I thought it would be the perfect motivation to get back into shape. I started researching when registration would open, especially since the half sold out in like a day. Lo and behold they turned this race into a lottery. Great! I had signed up for St. George in the past and not been chosen. I was pretty bummed that I would not get in and this would ruin my grand plans. I signed up anyway and pretty much figured I wouldn't get in. I was nervous opening the email in November when I got it. Congratulations.....I was in!

Here is where I started to question what in the world I had gotten myself into. I was so beyond excited and so pee my pants nervous at the same time. What was I doing? But hey, people run marathons every day right (not really as easy as it sounds)?

So the training began...if you can call it that. How do you train when you have Will for a kid and a husband who works graveyards? That sure threw a wrench into things. I did my darndest but to be honest my longest run I got in was about 8 miles. Defiantly not recommended for sure!

And then there was race day. I didn't want to necessarily get up at the crack of dawn (I totally should have gotten a room) so Steve had the brilliant idea of taking the camper. We found a scary parking lot just a bit from the shuttle pick up, parked it and grabbed some shut eye. The only problem was that Will didn't sleep so well and it was POURING rain all night long. I was sure it would stop or let up or clear up but that was not the case.

When I woke up in the morning (with about 3 hours of sleep) and got ready, I realized that it was still raining. Usually I just bring an old beat up long sleeve shirt I can dump on the side of the race. That rutty shirt of mine was cotton. Not the slightest bit helpful in keeping you warm in the rain, thank you very much.

The course? Friggin beautiful. More so than I remember, but also more of a course being the full marathon and not the half. Surprisingly I felt pretty amazing up to mile 19. When I was half way done I felt even better. But then there's that wall that you hear about. I slammed into it at mile 19. Well actually I wasn't running that fast at that point so slamming into it would not be a good description of that. I was totally soaking wet (it never let up), my phone was waterlogged and stopped working, I couldn't feel my hands or anything else for that matter. When I would reach for a glass of water at the water stops I could barley close my hand around the cup.

So the last miles were my roughest. But I knew my family was waiting for me. I knew that Steve was the champion of the day wrangling those kidos all morning because of the bad weather. I didn't cry when I finished but I think it was because I was in shock that I couldn't feel a thing. So Steve picked me up, gave me a hug, said he was proud and we left. I left it all there on the course...Katy wearing my finishing medal telling me that she was so proud I won first place! And then it was all worth it. Until I realized that I totally sucked it up and will now need to do it all again....one day when I maybe have a minute between kids and crazy schedules to actually train! In the end, my family motivates and makes me want to do amazing things....like run marathons and follow me on crazy adventures.

That and theses freakin hilarious signs they had up everywhere...one of my favorite parts of the races!