Ouch It hurts to Run 13.1 Miles!

Lelu & B ran the 5 mile and both placed 2nd for their respective age groups.  Lelu finished in 38:04, only 20 secs behind the 1st place. She's in the 12 to 15 group now.  B came in at 42:42, 2nd place for 46 to 50.  Last year she ran it in 40:02 and she wanted to increase her time by 2 minutes.  She did it!  That little thing is a speed demon!

D, myself and my friend Sharon all ran the half marathon.  D was aiming for under 2 hours, but in the last mile his shoes were bugging him so much that he took them off and ran in carrying them.  He got a lot of attention for it from the announcers but since his shoes with the race chip weren't on his feet, it didn't record a time for him.  The clock wasn't working either so we don't know how close he came to 2 hours.  B thinks it was a few minutes past.

I was extremely nervous all last week, wondering what on earth possessed me to sign up for this thing.  I finally just decided to take it one step at a time.  I could always walk if I needed to.  Sharon has been telling me this whole time she'll run it at my pace.  She doesn't normally run at my pace - she's 5'9", is thinner and in much better shape than me.  Last year she trained with a bunch of other girls to run the SLC half and every single one of them injured themselves and didn't run it.  She didn't want to injure herself and kept telling me she just wanted to do it and finish.  BUT after the race, I found out she had ulterior motives!

I had thrown out my goal as 2:15, but to be honest I had no idea how fast of a pace I had to keep to get that time.  It just was the average time for my age and I thought that'd be a good goal.  Sharon figured it out, but decided not to tell me, just to try to keep me at that pace.  She has this really neat gadget watch that keeps track of our pace, mileage, calories burned, elevation, time etc.  The whole time I couldn't hardly keep up a conversation but I felt pretty good so I just kept up the pace we were going.  She was telling me it was about my pace, maybe a little faster.  The last training run was 11 miles and I thought 2 more miles would be no big deal.  It ended up being a VERY big deal to me.  At about mile 9 my foot usually goes numb.  I've handled numb many times, but at mile 11 numb went to severe shooting pain with every step.  I kept telling Sharon to go ahead of me.  She'd say to me "You did not train to walk the last 2 miles, push through the pain, the damage is already done, just finish and finish well", I'd say "please go ahead of me" and she'd say the same thing again "You aren't going to quit or walk, keep going"  I made the decision to stop complaining after about 1/2 a mile of it and just start praying.  I was seriously taking it one painful step at a time. We finished in 2:14!  I had to keep telling myself not to cry, I was feeling unusually emotional after crossing the finish line.  Mom & Dad came over from Aunt Donna's in Blanding and were there to see us all finish.  Definitely one of those memorable moments for me. It meant a lot to me to have their support.

 When we went back to the condo we were staying in, we went to go soak in the hot tub, Sharon says "I lied to you about our pace the whole time".  I don't think I've ever been more grateful to be lied to about anything ever in my life.  The first 9 miles we were running a 9 min 50 sec mile.  That's running about a 6.2 on the treadmill.  Then we hit a big hill and slowed to just under 11 min mile for the last 3 miles.  I didn't know my short little legs had it in me to keep that pace for that long. My comfortable pace is an 11 min mile.  She had decided she was going to pace me and just see how well I could do.  My quads and feet are unbelievable sore today.  I focused on using my legs the last 2 miles to compensate for my foot and I can really feel it. It must be like childbirth and thankfully the memory of the pain you've suffered fades. We signed up to run the Utah Valley half on my birthday and she is trying to convince me to register for St. George full marathon.  I can not in my most insane imagination see running another 13.1 after the first 13.1 - but I did learn to NEVER SAY NEVER.