Today, I ran the much anticipated Utah Valley 1/2 Marathon. This was my third year running it, and it was a race I was gearing up for. It is a good course, and I was super excited.

Pre-race

Yesterday, about 3:30, I went to pick up my race pack. Provo is about a 40 minute drive from my house, so I figured I would be gone for a little over an hour and a half. With my awesome navigational skills, coupled with construction, heavy traffic, and about a million other things going on in Orem and Provo, my trip turned into 3, long, tedious hours. I wanted to pick up some Gu, but wasn’t able to with the time I had left to get home for Adam to leave for a meeting.

Immediately upon coming home, I began making a spaghetti dinner for my family– including 6 of my brothers and parents– who were coming to stay the night, for a family reunion the next day. We were all so excited to see them, as my brother, Joel had just returned from an LDS Mission to Tokyo Japan! He was there when the Tsunami hit. Here is a video that he is in…can you tell I’m a proud big sister? 🙂

Joel and my other brothers (minus Blair) the day he left

Joel with Azure at her baby blessing

Because I needed to get to bed early in order to wake up by 3am (4 am bus load) I took Azure with me (away from all he excitement that was going on in the house). That was the beginning of the longest.night.ever. At about 10 pm, Azure felt warm, and was fussy and irritable. I tried for a couple hours to get her to sleep, and finally resorted to giving her some Dimeatap. I took a swig, myself, hoping that the antihistamine would knock me out. It didn’t at all. In fact, I was awake more than before, and Azure was, too. And, silly me, I didn’t event take into account that it would drain me completely of all my fluids…um, yeah. So, at about 1:55, still wide awake, Azure finally fell asleep, and so did I…only to wake up at 2:55 in order to get dressed, grab a quick bowl of oatmeal and head out the door…not the best start.

Race

I was still soooo tired when we got up to the starting line. I did a light warm-up and some strides, and felt pretty good. The weather just before the race was pretty mild, which I was excited about. Literally, seconds before race time, the wind started to gust. I knew it was supposed to be windy, and was planning on going out conservative. I tucked in right behind the leaders, and we were going right where I wanted to be. The first mile was a 6:12–exactly on–We started to slow as we went into a hill at mile 2, but I still stayed behind them. At mile 3, we went through a tunnel, that took about a minute to go through. I didn’t realize until the end of the race, that we had lost satellite through there, and my time was one minute off :/.

The 4 of us stayed together until about mile 8 or so, and that is where I was feeling a little tired (sleep tired). There was some Gu at an aid station, and I reached for it. Not realizing that they had already opened it for me, I went to open it, only to squirt brown gewiness all over my hand, and consequently on my face. All of the helpers at that station were handing out Gu, so none were handing out drinks–they were just out on the tables. I had to grab a drink off the table to wash the Gu down, and ended up splashing purple Gatorade all over my hair and face. The only thing that would have made this moment better, would be if there was a photographer right there! I slowed a lot for the next 2 minutes or so, trying to wipe the stickiness off.

From then, on, I felt like I was playing catch-up. My body didn’t hurt, and my cardio was fine, I was just tired. I felt like I could close my eyes and just take a nap right there…1 hour of sleep will do that to you every time, I guarantee it! At mile 10, I got passed by Kali White, and I was sitting 5th. At that point, I knew that my goal time was out, and I was just going for place. I had a goal of top 5, as I have taken 7th the last 2 years (top 5 get cash prizes). I kind of just coasted in the last 3 miles. Mentally, I didn’t feel like pushing it, when I didn’t have the need…not my best competitive moment….I was one.tired.mom. It was great to have my dad and brother, Joel at the last 2oo meters, cheering me on, and then to see Adam, Azure and my mom at the finish. Adam took a video of the finish. I love hearing Azure’s voice cheering for me, and watching her try to run after me. That made it all worth it <3.

Here are my splits: 6:11.82,  6:23.34, 6:33.64, 6:23.90, 6:13.97, 6:07.33, 6:22.08, 6:27.22, 6:26.66, 6:36.17, 6:49.56, 6:40.03, 6:28.32,  52 seconds for the last .14

I ended up with a 1:25.36. Not my best time, but I will take it. After talking to the other girls, they were all about 3 minutes off of their last year’s time. I don’t feel so bad about that.

I am even more excited now, for the American Fork 1/2, on June 23rd!