26.2, Top of Utah!

On Saturday I ran the Top of Utah marathon in beautiful Logan, Utah with my husband, his sister Laura and niece Ashlynn. It was definitely not what I expected for my first marathon, but I am still alive and walking (sort of)!

I often get asked about my motivation to run a marathon, and the honest answer is I didn't really have a lot of motivation. It was never something I aspired to or had a desire to do. It may have been on my mental list of things to do before I die, but it wasn't something I ever thought I would do or could do. Even after I registered for this marathon I had to really convince myself that I was going to do it, and if my husband hadn't been the driving force in getting me out to run the mileage (and pushing our three boys in the double jogger for 16+ miles) I couldn't have done it.

The reason I decided to run was inspiration from this conversations episode by Sister Elaine Dalton. As Sister Dalton was talking about the lessons she has learned from running marathons and the experience of running with her husband, I had the strongest feeling that I needed to do this with my husband before he leaves. If I could survive a marathon I figured I could survive the next year without him and anything else life decided to throw my way.

I trained in Kentucky during the hot humid summer and hoped that would prepare me for running at the high Utah elevation, but boy was I wrong! Not only did it feel like someone was sitting on my chest, but it was cold. The morning we did a 14 mile training run my arms and hands were so cold I thought I would get frostbite and my hands swelled up afterwards (I never even swelled up when pregnant!) This really discouraged me and I felt as if all my training had been wasted because I felt like I hadn't run a day in my life.

The morning of the marathon came and thankfully I got a good night's sleep (the boys stayed in Idaho with family), but it was drizzling. The weather forecast said 20% chance of rain so we weren't too worried, but grabbed some trash bags from the front desk anyway. By the time we rode our bus an hour to the top (and managed to fight off carsickness) it had begun to really rain. We put on our lovely trash bags and stayed pretty dry.

  

That is until mile 2 or 3 when it cleared up and we ditched them. Then of course the real rain came. Not light drizzling rain- buckets and buckets of cold rain. Then hail! I had purchased my lovely hooded jacket at D.I. the night before just in case it was cold and it's a good thing I did. That and my arm sleeves saved my life. My legs were really cold but my arms stayed pretty warm. The course took us from the top of the canyon down to the bottom of the canyon, so it was virtually downhill for 16 or 17 miles. I ran the first 13 miles in 2:30 which is my fastest 1/2 marathon time so far.

Once we came out of the canyon the storm came back with a vengance, more rain and more hail. The street was flooded and I could feel the water sloshing from the top of my shoe to the back of my shoe with every step. Lightning struck really close a few times too. It was really pretty miserable. I was cold, wet and tired and I gave up caring about what time I finished, I planned on hobbling to the end.

  

But unfortunately (or maybe fortunately- I still haven't decided which) my husband pushed me to continue running 5 miles per hour like we had trained. I was pretty grouchy at this point and silently vowed never to run with him again, but he was a good sport and ran in slow motion so I could keep up. The last 6 miles were definitely the hardest. On one hand I was thinking wow, only 6 more to go! But on the other hand that is six whole miles, over an hour more! I finally put in my ipod and blocked out my negative thoughts with music those last few miles. The last mile was such a relief I only stopped to walk once and was so ecstatic to see the finish line I almost broke down and cried. And I was happy that I beat the 6 hour mark- only by 15 minutes, but still- I wasn't dead last!

There are so many life lessons to be learned in training for and completing a marathon. I'm sure I'll share more than anyone will care to read, but the one that really stuck with me was how discouraged I became toward the end. I was so close yet I had these negative thoughts telling me I was so far away. I couldn't help but think how often in life we overcome challenges and trials and just when we're near the end we hit another bump in the road and it becomes a breaking point tempting us to throw away everything we've worked so hard for. Yet if we can push past those negative feelings and keep trudging along slowly but surely we will make it to the end and it will be worth it, even if it takes longer and is harder than we planned for.

So...any of my Salt Lake friends who want to train for a half or full marathon- let me know! I could use a running buddy who is slow like me ;)  Oh, and yes, I did take pictures of the Logan temple, but give me a week or two to get them edited and posted...

I eat, therefore I run

Saturday my husband and I ran in the Derby marathon. I ran the 1/2 marathon and he ran the full. He was kind enough to run slow with me for the first eight miles and (then managed to complete the last 18 miles in about the same time as it took me to run the first eight).

I did manage to beat my time from January by 10 minutes to 2:45. I was happy because the longest training run I did was 6 miles (it gets a little boring running that long on the treadmill).

The first 4 miles are the hardest for me. Once I get past that I feel like I could pretty much go forever but that first stretch is sheer torture. I was asking myself why on earth am I doing this for a third time? Then I remembered... oh yes, it's because I love to eat things like this and this and especially this. Running when you're thirty is no longer just a fun thing to do, it's a necessity.

I even managed to sign myself up for a full marathon this fall. They said it's all downhill. I hope so. I didn't realize at the time though that I would have to be training in the summer. In Kentucky. Where it's HOT and HUMID. This is going to be so much fun...

The Osborne's

Goodbye sunshine!

We took our annual trip to Florida last week. Last January was miserably cold but this year was absolutely gorgeous. The week started out mid seventies and ended high sixties. It was so nice to be able to swim, run and simply exist in the wonderful warm sunshine.

We took the boys to Disney World for the 4th year in a row. It's so fun to see the excitement grow each time. They team tackled the characters (Grant sucked on their noses) walked for miles upon miles and rode rides with stomachs of steel.

They love all the rides at Magic Kingdom especially the race cars, love seeing Lightning McQueen and the playhouse disney show, test track, the extreme action stunt show was awesome as was the Indiana Jones stunt show, they always love the safari and of course their favorite thing is hugging all the characters.

Anthony's sister Laura along with Scott & Jackson joined us mid week. It was so much fun to have them with us down there again. The boys adore them and couldn't get enough hugging and cuddling.

The kids did their 100 & 200 meter races and fortunately it wasn't freezing cold or rainy this year so they had a ton of fun. Anthony and I ran the half marathon together and despite my intentions to "train" for this one, I only ran more than 4 miles two or three times, and still finished at 2:56 (which is slow compared to people like my husband) but 20 minutes faster than my last one so I was quite happy. The highlight was definitely running under Cinderella's castle. My slightly insane husband decided to do the Goofy Challenge so he ran the half marathon with me and the next day ran the full marathon alone finishing it at 4:08 which I have to say is pretty amazing especially considering the races were back to back (although it does make me feel pretty slow and weak).

   

   

Our last day we relaxed (or I should say I relaxed, Anthony ran a marathon that morning) and swam in the evening. The boys were all asleep and we decided to check the weather since we'd heard rumors of snow in Atlanta. Last year we narrowly escaped the ice storm that hit Atlanta by driving all night long. When we saw they were supposed to get 5 inches and it was going to be snowing all the way up through Nashville we decided we better not take our chances and head out right then (after I begged and pleaded for him to catch a plane home and pick me up the next week, to no avail).

I drove the first shift hitting 50 miles south of Atlanta by 2:30am and the sleet started to fall. By the time we reached Atlanta it was really coming down. The roads were snowy and icy and I kid you not, there was not ONE single snow plow from Atlanta to 40 miles south of Nashville going Northbound. There was one tiny pass before Nashville that had been plowed and iced but it only lasted about 5-10 miles and the rest of the time it looked like the images below. Can you believe that is an interstate??? I have never driven on roads like this before even with all the snow in New Hampshire and Utah. I have two words for the deep south SNOW PLOWS!!!

                                I-75 downtown Atlanta 3:00am        I-75 50 miles South of Nashville 7:00am

Aneeewaaay... We made it home safely thanks to our mad snow driving skills and many, many silent prayers. Fortunately the storm only dropped about a half an inch here (but of course school closed for 2 days). Now we get to enjoy lovely 20 degree weather. But oh how I miss the sun!

13.1

I survived! I ran my first half marathon on Saturday- the Air Force Marathon in Dayton, OH. I had not trained very well for it (the furthest I'd run was 7 miles) because our treadmill got flooded out and then I came down with mono so I only had 6 weeks to train. I was planning to walk most of it but was worried about how hot and humid it was going to be.

We stayed with our good friends from law school, the Toronto's. Our boys love playing with their boys and they were kind enough to watch them while we ran. I was secretly hoping Joann would go into labor so I'd have a good excuse to get out of the race..but no such luck ;)

The night before I got about 2 hours of sleep. Joshua was up all night crying because he wasn't in his own bed and Grant woke up around 12:30 in so much pain from his top two teeth coming in. I finally got to sleep from about 2:00-4:30 when Anthony woke me up to get ready. He was doing the full marathon and wanted to be there plenty early. I walked him to his course and then went back to the car and caught another hour or so of sleep (admist the sound of b-52's flying overhead). He hurt his foot a few weeks earlier and I had been complaining about having to run alone, so he was kind enough to run really slow and meet up with me when our tracks merged at my mile 9 (if I made it that far ;)

My original goal was to finish in 3 1/2 hours. I thought based on my training I'd be lucky to finish in 4. I started out better than I expected considering the lack of sleep, and finished 5 miles in just over an hour. I was able to maintain a steady pace and didn't feel tired at all. I started to get hot spots on the pads of my feet so had to stop and put on moleskin, my feet were fine the rest of the run. The weather was absolutely perfect, it wasn't humid at all and there was a nice breeze, I didn't sweat at all.

I got to mile 9 expecting to have some GU's to replenish my electrolytes but all they had were orange slices. Anthony called me and I was ahead of him so I waited for about 10 minutes at mile 9 and he met up with me. By the time we reached mile 11 my calves were really starting to cramp up and there were no other replenishments. Wish I'd brought my own and I would have been able to run the whole way. I stopped and walked for a good mile, mile and a half. Finally the cramping eased up and we ran most of the last mile. I was surprised that I finished in 3:17 especially since I ended up walking quite a bit of the last part (and felt a bit bad that I made Anthony run his slowest marathon ever, but I was grateful not to be alone). I succumbed to the ice bath ritual when we got back to our friends house, it was torture for the first few seconds but after your body goes numb it feels pretty good. It wasn't quite as cold as the ocean in NH but pretty close.

 

So I guess I've passed the runner's initiation. After taking a few ibuprofen I hardly felt sore at all the next day. All in all it wasn't as hard as I expected it to be and if I'd brought my own electrolyte replacement and gotten more than a few hours of sleep I think I would have been able to get in under 3 hours. In fact, in some sick way I kind of enjoyed the pain... We're doing Disney World in January so I've got a few months to train up for my next one...