I can't believe I did it… and now I'm hooked!
Jill had been begging me to run with her for about 4 years and she had spent some time with me over the summer teaching me how to run (actually, by "time", I mean maybe a couple of hours)… yes, teaching me. She showed me how to keep a steady pace and how to breathe properly so that I didn't run out of breath so easily. Jill has run a marathon, a few half marathons and did the swimming portion of a relay style triathlon (and won!)… and I always asked her "WHY!?". I thought running was the most boring and pointless thing. I thought she was crazy.
In October my friend Aubrey and I decided to create a work out plan together and Jill had a brilliant idea to train for the Canyonlands Half Marathon in Moab, UT on March 8, 2008. Jill was 8 months pregnant at the time and she figured that if she signed up for the run it would help her to lose her pregnancy weight (Even though she ended up losing it all in the first 2 weeks anyway!). We convinced my Dad, my brother Trent, my sister Audrey and my cousin Lindsay to sign up with us.
I started training in October and at that point I couldn't even run a full mile (A half marathon is 13.1 miles). Seriously, I could probably do ¼ mile, THAT'S ALL. I have always been pretty active and enjoyed going to the gym, but I usually lifted weights and spent 40 minutes on the stair machine or went to a spin class. Even to this day, I have never run even a mile on a treadmill. Running was completely different for me. I had trouble keeping a good pace and getting into "the zone". I felt like each step was its own separate struggle to get one foot in front of the other. I knew the rhythm would come in time, so I just kept at it. I remember going to LVAC with Corey and our friends Grayson and Amy and we decided to warm up by running around the track. Grayson was lapping us and I remember seeing him run in front of us and he just looked so comfortable, like his legs were just going through the motions without him even thinking about it. I was jealous. I wanted to find that rhythm and not stress about each step. I would say it took me about 3 weeks to get it.
Jill and I live about a mile away from each other so I just started by trying to run to her house without stopping. I would do 1 mile a night a few times a week, then I went to 2. I know, I know, it's pretty lame, but I had to start somewhere. I took about 3 weeks to get up to a 4 mile run. At this point I started getting bored with the same old routes and having to drive out the distance ahead of time. My friend told me about the Nike+IPod shoes that have a chip that goes in your shoe that communicates with your IPod and tracks your distance, time & pace. I went out and got the setup. I LOVE having my Nike+IPod! I would recommend it to every runner. I no longer had to worry about my route or my distance. A voice would just come over my music and tell me my distance and time at each mile. Then I could go online and track my runs and paces. It was the best.
October through March are not the warmest months and that was one of the toughest things for me. I really hate the cold. I was a slacker on really cold nights. The other tough part was finding time after work. I work a lot and when I would work long hours it was hard to find time to run. I found myself going at 9 or 10pm most of the time. At first, Aubrey would come over and run with me, but soon after we started training, she found out she was pregnant, so I was training solo until Jill felt up to it. She had little Carson on October 27th and started running with me in November. I just have to mention that my fastest mile recorded was when I ran from my house to Jill's to see Carson right after he came home from the hospital. (He's so adorable!)
December is when I really started to enjoy running. I loved turning up my music and just taking off. The biggest motivator to me was my music, it was so important to me that I had good music and I switched it out every few weeks. After I ran 7 miles, I hurt my knee. I was suppose to take a month off to let it heal, but I had a half marathon coming up and I couldn't lose the training time, so I gave it 8 days and then picked up again, starting with lower mileage. Fortunately, it didn't give me too much trouble. There were a couple of times when I would be running and I would hit about 8 miles and my knee would just give out. I would almost fall flat on my face. It hurt so much when that would happen, but each time I just kept running through it and the pain would actually go away about 20 steps later.
The farthest distance I ran before the race was 10 miles. It wasn't too horribly bad, so I wasn't very worried about 13.1.
Last Thursday night (3/6/8) Jill and I drove up to Cedar City to meet up with my family and head out to Moab on Friday. We bought matching running shorts with pink stripes and matching pink sweatbands for our wrists, just because we're super cool like that. My left knee was giving me some pain on Thursday and Friday which worried me, but it ended up going away before the race. We arrived in Moab on Friday night. Trent and Audrey had work and school on Friday night, so they had to drive half way (to Richfield) that night and drive up the rest of the way on Saturday morning. When we arrived in Moab we had to go straight to the EXPO Center to pick up our packets which contained our chips for tracking our time and our bibs (the numbers that go on the front of your shirt) along with some protein/energy bars, a running shirt and a hat. The EXPO Center was filled with runners. They all looked like pros. I felt very out of place. We bought some gel packs, which are little packets filled with this goo that you gag down about half way through the race and it's suppose to give you energy. Then we went to dinner and off to bed.
The big day. 3/8/8.
Saturday morning was sooo cold. Jill and I didn't really pack very well for cold weather. We had our cute black and pink shorts and thin long sleeve shirts. When we showed up at the bus pick up, everyone was dressed in pants and warm jackets. Jill and I looked so cold, I'm sure people thought we were crazy. We waited for the last group of buses (to haul us up the canyon to the starting line) because we were hoping to meet up with Trent and Audrey BUT unfortunately, they ended up missing the packet pick up deadline and weren't able to run. Lindsay wasn't able to make it either because she hurt her knee (probably from running a half marathon in California a few weeks before).
Jill had been begging me to run with her for about 4 years and she had spent some time with me over the summer teaching me how to run (actually, by "time", I mean maybe a couple of hours)… yes, teaching me. She showed me how to keep a steady pace and how to breathe properly so that I didn't run out of breath so easily. Jill has run a marathon, a few half marathons and did the swimming portion of a relay style triathlon (and won!)… and I always asked her "WHY!?". I thought running was the most boring and pointless thing. I thought she was crazy.
In October my friend Aubrey and I decided to create a work out plan together and Jill had a brilliant idea to train for the Canyonlands Half Marathon in Moab, UT on March 8, 2008. Jill was 8 months pregnant at the time and she figured that if she signed up for the run it would help her to lose her pregnancy weight (Even though she ended up losing it all in the first 2 weeks anyway!). We convinced my Dad, my brother Trent, my sister Audrey and my cousin Lindsay to sign up with us.
I started training in October and at that point I couldn't even run a full mile (A half marathon is 13.1 miles). Seriously, I could probably do ¼ mile, THAT'S ALL. I have always been pretty active and enjoyed going to the gym, but I usually lifted weights and spent 40 minutes on the stair machine or went to a spin class. Even to this day, I have never run even a mile on a treadmill. Running was completely different for me. I had trouble keeping a good pace and getting into "the zone". I felt like each step was its own separate struggle to get one foot in front of the other. I knew the rhythm would come in time, so I just kept at it. I remember going to LVAC with Corey and our friends Grayson and Amy and we decided to warm up by running around the track. Grayson was lapping us and I remember seeing him run in front of us and he just looked so comfortable, like his legs were just going through the motions without him even thinking about it. I was jealous. I wanted to find that rhythm and not stress about each step. I would say it took me about 3 weeks to get it.
Jill and I live about a mile away from each other so I just started by trying to run to her house without stopping. I would do 1 mile a night a few times a week, then I went to 2. I know, I know, it's pretty lame, but I had to start somewhere. I took about 3 weeks to get up to a 4 mile run. At this point I started getting bored with the same old routes and having to drive out the distance ahead of time. My friend told me about the Nike+IPod shoes that have a chip that goes in your shoe that communicates with your IPod and tracks your distance, time & pace. I went out and got the setup. I LOVE having my Nike+IPod! I would recommend it to every runner. I no longer had to worry about my route or my distance. A voice would just come over my music and tell me my distance and time at each mile. Then I could go online and track my runs and paces. It was the best.
October through March are not the warmest months and that was one of the toughest things for me. I really hate the cold. I was a slacker on really cold nights. The other tough part was finding time after work. I work a lot and when I would work long hours it was hard to find time to run. I found myself going at 9 or 10pm most of the time. At first, Aubrey would come over and run with me, but soon after we started training, she found out she was pregnant, so I was training solo until Jill felt up to it. She had little Carson on October 27th and started running with me in November. I just have to mention that my fastest mile recorded was when I ran from my house to Jill's to see Carson right after he came home from the hospital. (He's so adorable!)
December is when I really started to enjoy running. I loved turning up my music and just taking off. The biggest motivator to me was my music, it was so important to me that I had good music and I switched it out every few weeks. After I ran 7 miles, I hurt my knee. I was suppose to take a month off to let it heal, but I had a half marathon coming up and I couldn't lose the training time, so I gave it 8 days and then picked up again, starting with lower mileage. Fortunately, it didn't give me too much trouble. There were a couple of times when I would be running and I would hit about 8 miles and my knee would just give out. I would almost fall flat on my face. It hurt so much when that would happen, but each time I just kept running through it and the pain would actually go away about 20 steps later.
The farthest distance I ran before the race was 10 miles. It wasn't too horribly bad, so I wasn't very worried about 13.1.
Last Thursday night (3/6/8) Jill and I drove up to Cedar City to meet up with my family and head out to Moab on Friday. We bought matching running shorts with pink stripes and matching pink sweatbands for our wrists, just because we're super cool like that. My left knee was giving me some pain on Thursday and Friday which worried me, but it ended up going away before the race. We arrived in Moab on Friday night. Trent and Audrey had work and school on Friday night, so they had to drive half way (to Richfield) that night and drive up the rest of the way on Saturday morning. When we arrived in Moab we had to go straight to the EXPO Center to pick up our packets which contained our chips for tracking our time and our bibs (the numbers that go on the front of your shirt) along with some protein/energy bars, a running shirt and a hat. The EXPO Center was filled with runners. They all looked like pros. I felt very out of place. We bought some gel packs, which are little packets filled with this goo that you gag down about half way through the race and it's suppose to give you energy. Then we went to dinner and off to bed.
The big day. 3/8/8.
Saturday morning was sooo cold. Jill and I didn't really pack very well for cold weather. We had our cute black and pink shorts and thin long sleeve shirts. When we showed up at the bus pick up, everyone was dressed in pants and warm jackets. Jill and I looked so cold, I'm sure people thought we were crazy. We waited for the last group of buses (to haul us up the canyon to the starting line) because we were hoping to meet up with Trent and Audrey BUT unfortunately, they ended up missing the packet pick up deadline and weren't able to run. Lindsay wasn't able to make it either because she hurt her knee (probably from running a half marathon in California a few weeks before).
So there we were… me, Jill and Dad on our way up the canyon. I tried not to think about how long of a drive it was, because we were driving the exact path that we'd have to run. It was so beautiful. The run was right along a river through a red canyon. When we got to the starting line we decided to line up between the 9:00 & 10:00 pace mark, meaning we were planning on running 9 or 10 minute miles. It seemed like it took forever for the starting shot to fire, mostly because of how cold is was, and I just wanted to get my blood circulating.
Me, Jill and Dad started out together and kept fairly close for the first mile, then we started to separate. It seemed like I was passing quite a few people in the beginning which made me feel pretty confident. The first 6 miles went by so fast. I warmed up pretty quickly and then the weather felt really nice. I didn't start to feel tired until about mile 9. At mile 10 I took my gel pack (energy goo) and almost puked when I tried swallowing it. It was not yummy. It was thick. Luckily there was a water station up ahead.
During my training I always hated having to stop in the middle of a run. I always felt like if I stopped, even to tie my shoe, it messed up my rhythm and made it ever harder to run when I started going again. I wanted to run the full 13.1 miles without taking a walking break. My goal time was 2:25.
I felt pretty good going into mile 11 as we headed out of the canyon and onto the main road into town. Trent was waiting at about mile 12 to cheer us on. It was perfect timing because I was just starting to get pretty tired. I loved seeing Trent there and getting that encouragement, it was so great! Something changed in me at 12.5 miles. I know, I know, I only had ½ a mile left… but my body hit a wall and it didn't want to function any longer. I kept repeating in my head "Mind over matter, mind over matter…". I wanted so badly to go the full race without walking but I realized that I started seeing black spots and felt light headed. I knew that if I didn't start walking, I would pass out. I gave in and started a short walk. I was not speed walking, I was like a zombie. I was soooo tired. I turned the corner to the main street and could see the finish line ahead. The crowd started getting bigger and I told myself that I couldn't walk to the finish line… that would be so lame. It took a couple of tries to pick up my legs to a jog, but I did it. I picked up my speed the closer I got to the finish line. Everyone could see the exhaustion in my face and they were cheering me on. I looked ahead and saw my Mom and Ben (Jill's husband) to the left just before the finish line. They saw me and started screaming and cheering so loud. It felt so good to cross that finish line. The best part was looking up at the finish line clock and seeing that I was below my goal time. I wanted to come in at 2:25 and my official time was 2:18.
It was so fun to cheer for Jill as she came in just a few minutes later. I was so proud of my Dad, who had turned 50 just 2 months earlier. He stopped just a few steps before the finish line and went up to my Mom and said he couldn't possible go on without a little motivation and he kissed her and then crossed the finish line.
I really had a great time and look forward to my next half marathon. I plan on doing a lot more training, so I'm prepared to go the full13.1 without walking. I'd also like to improve my time with each race. I hope to do the next one in about 3 or 4 months. I want to do 3 more half marathons before signing up for a full marathon (26.2 miles). I plan on participating in a triathlon this year with our friends. We want to do a relay style triathlon where I do the running portion, Jill does the swim and our friend Amy does the bike. The boys are doing it too, with Ben doing the run, Corey doing the swim and Grayson doing the bike. It should be really fun!
The End. : )
6 comments:
I think that's the longest blog that I've ever read, but SO awesome. I've always wished I could run, but just can't do it. You should be really proud of yourself. Your page is so cute! I was wondering when you would be blogging!
Yahoo! You did it! When I was at school in Utah I learned to run a mile and a half without stopping and that was an accomplishment for me. I don't know if I could ever do what you guys did. a half marathon that is amazing. You trooper. Your'e awesome! It is great to have you blogging. Your blog looks great!
I am soooo impressed with you!!! Nice job!!! My thinking right now is just like yours before you started running. I've always wanted to get into it, but I get so tired and bored! I might need you to "teach" me how to run!!!
You guys are so motivated...I love it...I'll be like that one day...I just don't know how soon...it is convinient that you live down the street though in case I need encouragement...I love that Wesley kissed Donna; what a great husband...and I enjoyed your journal entry.
Okay, so you have definately inspired me. I have been running 1 mile 3 days a week for a while and I just did 2 last week outside in a neighborhood and it was so awsome!! You have to teach me the breathing tricks.My legs can go but it just gets hard to breathe. So send me some tips!! you are amazing!
Girl you’re crazy… Admirable but crazy. I just can’t believe you can do that. You go girl!
I just finished reading your blog! It’s so good to see you 1 I’m glad life has worked out for you. You look so happy. Question… sense we are both new at this blog thing. How did you add your list of friends? I haven’t had time to play with this much so I have no idea.
W/B
Kari
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