Saturday, April 18th turned out to be a beautiful day for a run. Good thing, because it was the longest run I've ever done!
Last year, when I saw my friend, Lisa, run her second marathon I became inspired to run the Salt Lake City Half Marathon, which would be exactly a year away. At the time, I was five months pregnant with Hadleigh and was doing absolutely no running... unless you consider running to the bathroom because you can't keep food in your stomach due to nausea (I did plenty of that!) I kept the thought of running the half marathon on April 18th, 2009 in my mind during the rest of my pregnancy, promising myself I would start training in October, six weeks post-partum.
After Hadleigh's birth I felt fantastic. My recovery went well, so well that I had no problem jumping on the treadmill when I was given the go ahead from my doctor. The part that didn't go so well was building up my endurance. Since I had run 5k's before getting pregnant I figured that I would probably be able to get on the treadmill and pop out a few miles the very first time. The laughter in my own head at my naivete was loud and never ending. The first time I got on the treadmill I ran about a half mile before I gave up and started walking. The good thing that happened for me was that it seemed my body did in fact remember the process and I was able to build up to three miles fairly quickly... only because I was bound and determined to run a 5k on Thansgiving morning. When Thanksgiving came I was able to do the 5k but it was definitely no where near my best run. BUT, I was able to do it well enough that I didn't doubt my ability to train for the half marathon. I decided to stick to running three miles three or four days a week and not ramp up the training since Christmas and many a birthday fall in December. January 2nd was the day my real training would begin.
I found a fifteen week training plan that I decided I would use to help me prepare for the big day. Each week included three or four week day runs that were anywhere between two and five miles. Then on the weekend I would have a long run anywhere between four and twelve miles, leading up to my 13.1 mile half marathon on April 18th. I was fairly good about sticking with the plan. My only problem came when I got sick two different times during the fifteen training weeks and it chopped about three weeks of training from my plan due to the fact that the colds I came down with really affected my resperatory system. There were a few weeks near the end of the training where I really worried about being able to complete the thirteen miles but with three weeks to go I decided that I would get across the line come hell or high water and officially entered the race (I didn't enter earlier because I feared injury since I had never done anything like this.)
The morning of April 18th my friend, Brenna, whom I recruited to do the race with me so that I wouldn't flake out, came to pick me up at 5am. I woke up at 4am that morning but it wasn't really hard to do since I had been up all night. The same thing happened with me that happened when I ran my first 5k, I was ridiculously nervous! I don't know what happens in my brain but I start to think about the fact that I've never done anything of the sort and what if I fail or get hurt or just flake out and don't finish?! Yeah, it's so dumb that I get that nervous but it seems to be quite the tradition now. Rob has said he thinks it is just my fear of the unknown and I think he is right because now when I run 5k's I never get nervous, I just enjoy it. Hopefully, that is how it will be for my next half marathon (yes, there will be another one.) Brenna and I arrived at The Gateway shopping center at about 5:30am and hopped on Trax to get up to the starting line. The ride was supposed to be 25 minutes but it ended up taking 45 minutes. When we got to the University of Utah we hit the Port-a-Potty lines because we didn't want to have to go to the bathroom while running. Well, everyone else obviously had the same idea. We were about three people away from the front of the line when the actual start gun went off. We weren't going to get out of line because even though the start gun had sounded, a runner's timing doesn't start until they step across the starting line and the "chip" that's tied to your shoe laces registers in the timing system. When everyone realized the race had started you could hear people in line start yelling at everyone in the port-a -potties to "hurry up and pee!", "pee faster" and my personal favorite "pee like you run... fast!"
We started running 7 minutes 8 seconds after the starting gun was sounded. It's amazing how exhilerating it feels to be part of something so big. There were supposedly about seven thousand runners that lined up for the marathon/half-marathon start and to be surrounded by so many people you know have been training for months on end, just like you have, is exciting! It's also nice to have some company as well, since most of the training runs people do are usually solitary. The first mile was so much fun because I got completely caught up in the moment of it all and watching so many people run with you as well as seeing all the people who came out to celebrate the accomplishment is overwhelming. Right after I passed mile one I saw my friends, Lisa and Danae, standing on the side of the road... it was so nice to see my friends had come out to encourage me and who truly believed in me. I stopped really quick so that I could have them take my running jacket since I was already starting to get warm... and to give them thank you hugs for coming out so early to root me on. You may be wondering why I haven't mentioned Brenna yet. Well, that's because she completely rocks and I told her we could start together but since I knew she was a faster runner than I am, she should run her own race and just try to run the best race she could. She took off and never looked back!
When I hit my 5k mark I realized I had run my fastest time ever, 35:07, that may not be fast for some people but for me, that is really good. When I got to the five mile marker I saw that I had also run my fastest five mile time ever, 57:06. Unfortunately, something happened between mile three and mile five that had never happened before... I had to go to the bathroom! I've NEVER had to go to the bathroom during a long run and I was really angry that my biology decided to pick April 18th to test me. I felt the need to use the bathroom right after I passed the three mile marker. I didn't worry too much because in all the race documentation it said there would be bathrooms available every 1.7 to 1.9 miles. I kept running. Mile four came, no bathroom. Mile five, no bathroom. Mile six, no bathroom. Seriously?! I thought I was going to cry because I've never had to go to the bathroom so badly. At six and a half miles the bathrooms finally appeared... I've never been so happy... until I saw the line of people. I stood in line for five or six minutes and the line DID. NOT. MOVE! I started thinking of my location and tried to figure out if there were any businesses further down the route (I was currently in a neighborhood) I knew that about two miles away there was a bookstore I could run into so I decided to try to make it there. About half a mile down the course I saw a man sprint out of a coffee shop on a corner and almost started to cry because I knew a bathroom was in the immediate area (although the thought of knocking on someone's door and asking to use their toilet had crossed my mind!) I ran into the coffee shop and asked the woman at the counter if I could use their restroom and she automatically complied... I will now buy coffee at that coffee shop whenever I pass it because I am so grateful.
After the whole "bathroom debacle of 2009", as it is now known, I got right back on track and was running really well. I passed the nine mile marker at exactly two hours. I figured that was good because I knew I started seven minutes behind the starting gun and I had just had a ten minute issue with the bathroom situation. That meant I had run nine miles in one hour forty-three minutes. I was so happy! I soon found the happiness would be short lived because about a half mile after the nine mile marker I felt intense, shooting pains in my left shin, and soon after there was pain in my right shin although not as intense. For the first time in the race I had to start walking.
Just before the ten mile marker I saw my friends, Danae and Kristy, in Liberty Park. I stopped to talk to them for a few minutes before Kristy said she would run the next few miles with me. We pretty much ended up walking about a mile before I felt up to running again. Kristy asked me what nutrition I had been doing during the race and I was mortified to tell her I thought I would be able to finish the half marathon simply by alternating water and Gatorade at the water stations. I don't know why I did this because on all my long runs I had always done the gels every forty five minutes to make sure my body didn't deplete it's nutrient stores. This was definitely the dumbest thing I did that day. I know I would have finished stronger if I had done proper nutrition and it's a mistake I won't make again. When Kristy and I were at the eleven mile marker we decided to "hop-scotch" the lights, meaning I would run to one stop light and then walk to the next. it's the only way I was able to get my legs back under me, especially since the pain in my left shin was so bad. But I was determined to finish strong and at mile twelve I decided to run the last 1.1 miles. There were some women about a third of a mile in front of me and I used them as motivation to catch up to. Once I was around them I practically started sprinting to the finishing shute. As I ran down the final stretch I heard my mom and sister and Avery, along with Hadleigh, yelling for me on the second story of the mall. I passed them and then saw my friend, Brenna, yelling for me (she finished in 2:22:25!!!) And finally, I saw Rob. He looked so happy for me and I was so happy to see him because it suddenly dawned on me that I had finished. He told me he would be waiting for me at the finish and there he was! 3 hours and 8 minutes after I started. Yes, you read that correctly. 3 hours and 8 minutes. That means it took me and hour and fifteen minutes to finish the last four miles due to that darn shin pain!!!
I've tried not to obsess too much about my time. I had really hoped to finish under three hours and Rob kept on telling me to not attach a time goal because I had never done a half marathon and didn't know what to expect. I wish I had listened to him because I hate feeling disappointment. In the end the biggest lesson I have learned is to roll with the punches and remember to learn from this experience. But more than anything I can't tell you how proud of myself I am because I accomplished something that I really never thought I would ever do. On a whim I decided I would run a half marathon and I DID IT! I'm so happy that I followed through with what I said I was going to do and I'm even more happy that both my girls were there to see it... and will see me do many more.
Preparation
About 100 feet from the finish line. This is me asking Brenna "Where in the world have you been?!"
We're "Finishers"!
My Motivation... the picture taker is the other part of my motivation!
