This weekend was quite the eventful one. After pacing the Utah Valley 1/2, last weekend, Adam was asked to pace the 1:40 pace of the  HOMM 1/2.  He said he would; so that was the plan.

When we got home that day, he looked up the race online and found that there was a trail 1/2 marathon that was tied to this race, that was set to take place the day before.

Adam and I have really only been training on trails, and so that race sounded much more appealing to him, so he signed up. I asked him if he was up to doing back-to-back 1/2’s, and he seemed to be fine with it. I knew, in the back of my mind, that there was a chance that I would end up needing to step in and do the 1/2 …

So, the night before the trail 1/2, 2 of my brothers, Rand (26) and Kett (12) came through on their way up to Ogden to help my grandma with some yard work. They decided that they would stay the night at our house.

here’s Kett a couple years ago, helping my kids on a hike.

Rand is the bearded one in the back. Another super cool uncle!

I was planning on bringing the kids to watch Adam finish, but thought that they would have more fun with their uncles, so I asked if it was OK if I went with Adam to the race in the morning, and they said no problem. I have the coolest brothers EVER!

Bright and early, Adam and I headed to the race. I knew that I would have a lot of time before  he ran. We had to be there at 6 a.m., the bus shuttled them up, and the race was set to start at 7:30. Being that the race had a steep climb (1600 ft in the first 2 miles to be exact), followed by a steep, rocky descent, I knew that it might be a while.

So, what did I do? What else? I went for a run!

I thought that I would end up running on the parkway, which I wasn’t excited about at all. But, about .6 of a mile up the parkway, I noticed a trail head. I decided to go exploring.

The trail ended up winding its way up a mountain. It took about 1.5 miles to get to the bottom of the mountain, and the ascent was just over a mile up. It was so, so pretty up there. I just loved it! The problem was, I didn’t bring my camera. The views were just so amazing, that I didn’t want to miss out. So, I ran back down to the car, got my camera, and headed back up … yeah, I just had to. Here are some pics.

Here’s kind of a side story: About halfway up, I heard some rustling in the bushes. I looked up to see a deer (this was on the first time, so I didn’t get a picture). I don’t see deer out where I run; I just see antelope.

I have found that antelope are smart creatures, and don’t scare easy. They will stand their ground and watch you until you are out of their way. Deer on the other hand, always get scared and clumsily try to get out of there. I think this is why I don’t see any dead antelope on the roads; just deer. That’s my two cents, for what it’s worth :).

Anyhoo, back to Adam …

I figured that, being that the winner of the course last year, ran it in just shy of 2 hours, that Adam would be done at maybe 9:15-ish.

I got down just before 9, so that I would be there in plenty of time to get some good shots of him finishing, and even a video.

Nope.

I underestimated his awesome, super-human-ness. Just as I got out of the car, I heard the race director saying, “we have our first runner.”

I hustled to where the finish was, and here Adam comes, blazing  around the corner. I barely got a picture of his backside (not that that’s a bad thing 😉 ).

He ended up beating the course record by over 10 minutes and the second place guy came in 7 minutes later.

It was really funny, as he was finishing, there was a girl who was waiting, ready to take pictures of “the first finisher.” When Adam passed, she looked up, all peeved and said, “that’s not my husband!”

I almost said, “nope, it’s mine.” I just left it, but I could tell she was surprised. The guy who came in second was supposed to win it. Adam is very unassuming like that.

Here are some pictures of the race:

Here is a video I got of the awards ceremony. (Please disregard the annoying “Whoo’s.”

Here is a picture of the aftermath:

Your’e supposed to Band-aid those babies up BEFORE the race!

Not only did he get some nipple chaff-age, he had some major blisters on his feet.

I knew that he would have a hard time running the 1/2 the next day. I prepared myself to have to step in …

And, yup, by Friday evening, he was hobbling like crazy. I told him I would do it.

So, this morning I paced the 1/2.

Before the race, I met up with a friend, who I paced the SLC Marathon with, Ashley Poulson. She was doing what was called, the Oquirrhman Challenge. This is where you run the trail half, and then come back and run the MARATHON the next day. She won first place in the women’s 1/2 and did the same in the marathon. She did a little Ash Kickin’!

Here are some pics of her after the 1/2 on Friday:

The half was downhill for the first 8 miles … a KILLER downhill. It was so hard to keep it at 7:37 pace, but I really tried to slow things down.

I ran with a high school girl for a little while and did my best to encourage her to land softly on her feet on the downhill, but she really struggled with this. She  fell back at about mile 6.

As I got out of the canyon, I was about 1 minute ahead of pace. I wanted to make sure I banked some time, because we were told to come in 0-30 seconds under pace.

Starting at mile 8, the course was really flat, and I kept a consistent pace. I ran with a few women for a while, before they started to drop off on an uphill at about mile 9-10.

It went up for a while, then wound through some neighborhoods. At mile 11-12, it was a really steep uphill climb that I hadn’t expected. I was going at 8:30-9 minute pace up it; it was that steep.

All the time I had banked, I ended up losing on that, and more. I knew that I needed to pick it up significantly on the last mile, which was downhill, if I was going to come in on pace.

I did that, and ended up coming in 13 seconds under pace, at a 1:39.47. It wasn’t difficult at all and felt great! Here is a picture with me and another pacer after the race:

Just getting to the top of the hill

Being 6 months pregnant, there was not a single time where I felt uncomfortable, tired … anything. I feel really good about this.

All day he has been kickin’ like crazy! He’s definitely going to follow in the footsteps of his (wiggly) older siblings :).

It was a great weekend, and I am so grateful to have been able to do it!