Salt Lake City Half Marathon

Well, I completed my second half marathon on April 17Th! I really thought I would have done it before now. My first race was the Las Vegas Half in December of 2008 which was more than a year ago. I kept training after the Vegas Half and was scheduled to race another Half last March when my knees gave out. My last long run the week before the race, I was limping through the last 5 miles. I decided there was no way I was going to race and make it worse. So I backed off on the running for a while, adding in other work outs and then started playing soccer once a week back in September. After a while I realized I was getting faster. But... I had lost my motivation to run a Half. When the Vegas race came around again, I was relieved that the price had gone up because I really wasn't feeling the running thing. Of course, that didn't last long! Once the race was here, I found myself wishing I had trained. It didn't take much of a push from my very pregnant friend Caitlin to get me to sign up for the Salt Lake Half. I mean really, how do you tell a pregnant girl that wants to run the race right after having a baby, NO?? There is no excuse.

I signed up for the race by December 31st, leaving me WAY too long to train. I tried not to start too early because I knew I would get burned out, but that is very hard to do when you are finally ready. Needless to say, I was EXTREMELY burned out by race day! I pushed as hard as I could in my training. I am not a naturally fast person but I knew I was a lot faster than my first race. When I first started training, I had set a really high goal for myself and it felt very achievable. But the pace you run at 4 miles is a lot different from 13 when your body is exhausted from months of training. Even my 4 mile pace slowed. I started feeling really discouraged that I wouldn't be able to make my goal. If you know me at all, I hate not achieving the goals I set for myself. It makes me feel like a failure. So I had to start telling myself that it was okay if I wasn't as fast as I thought I should be, I would for sure be faster than I was. And that's something!

I didn't hit the goal I had originally set for myself and I was bummed at first. I knew at about mile 9 that is was slipping away. My first goal was to finish the race in 1:58. When mile 9 hit and I realized that was no longer possible, I just thought, I will be happy if I can finish in under 2 hours. I was carrying about an 8:40 pace for the first 7 miles so there was still a chance. After that, I started dying hard. When mile 10 came and it was a struggle to keep it under a 10 minute pace, I knew I had to give it everything I had, which I did. Then...... the dreaded mile 11 came. :-( I don't know what genius thought it would be a bright idea to make mile 11 straight up hill, but someone did. And no, not a slight incline, this baby was a hill!! Lots of people around me were walking. It took everything in me to keep running. My running pace on this uphill mile... around a 13 minute pace! Yeah, in one mile, my goal was shot! At first I thought to myself, I just didn't train hard enough. But when I rounded the corner on mile 12 and was no longer on a hill, my pace returned to a sub 9. Needless to say, I did not hit my goal. I came in at 2:02. I would be lying if I said I wasn't completely bummed when I finished. To non runners, a few minutes may seem like nothing. But if you are a runner, you understand just how much effort shaving off a few seconds per mile can take. Understanding this and realizing that I was able to shave 10 minutes off my first race, I can now be happy with my time and grateful for the experience. However, the Salt Lake Race is definitely not happening for this girl again!!

Official Results
Time - 2:02:32
Pace - 9:21
Age Div - 202/623
Overall - 1767/4632
Sex - 793/2886

The weekend as a whole was awesome! I drove up and roomed with two friends that were running the Full Marathon. We were able to stay at my parents place in Provo which made for a much cheaper weekend. On Friday, our day started with an oil change. Yep, good vacation fun! Then we picked up my really good friend Dawn, who was also running the Half, from her home in Lehi and headed in to Salt Lake to pick up our packets for the race.

Thankfully, they had a taping booth there so Jessi, Melissa, and I were able to be taped for the race. All of us were experiencing shin splints by this point. I was surprised at how much it helped. I really didn't have an issue with my shin at all during the race.

After the Expo we dropped Dawn off and headed to Olive Garden for our carb overload. :-) The best part of running is being able to binge on the good stuff and not feel bad. At dinner we met up with a few other racers. My friend Caitlin, who was racing after having a baby 9 weeks earlier and her 17 year old sister that would be completing her first Half. It was so great to be there with so many other friends. That was definitely the best part. I don't think I'll ever run a race by myself. The joy of seeing my friends at the start and finish, knowing they just went through the same emotions I did, is bonding.

Here are all of the friends that raced! It really was great times. After the race, they had a huge tent set up where they were giving free 10 minute massages to all the racers. There was ice cream, cookies, fruit, tacos... you name it.
After about an hour and a half all the Half-ers headed to the finish line to watch my friend Jessi complete her first Full Marathon. That was definitely a high light of the trip for me. I knew she had been wanting to run a Full for a while and to watch her come in strong and then cry tears of joy/pain was very motivating. It was a great experience.

Well, for any of you that actually took the time to read this entire post and are interested in this craziness, I think I will be running the Vegas Half this year. So, let's get a group going!