Half Marathon Completed

I finished the half marathon and what a great feeling it is. Our goal was to do it in 2 1/2 hours and we finished in 2 hours 15 minutes and 46 seconds. We didn't have a watch and they didn't have the time posted anywhere along the route so we had no idea how we were doing on time. We were excited to find out that we had beaten our goal by 15 minutes. We placed 247 and 248 out of 446 runners.

The course was beautiful. It was a gradual uphill climb for the first 6.5 miles and then we turned around and it was down hill for the last 6.5 miles (plus the .1 of 13.1 miles, wherever that figures in). We ran the whole thing except for my brief stop at 8.5 miles for a bathroom break. We hate stopping, but what can you do? We saw Shay's cousin Kayla and her husband a the beginning (the first photo was taken by them, thank you). Adam even stuck around, after cheering for Kayla, at around 8.5 miles to cheer us on. Thanks Adams!

Here we are ready to go. It was very cold out. When we started the race our hands were frozen. Luckily, it didn't take the sun too long to come out. Here we are nearing the end. This was right around mile 12. Julianna got there right in time and hoped out of her car to take a picture. Great timing!! I'm hiding...I was trying to get in the picture better, but didn't want to use too much energy because I needed it to run. This is where we were wondering about what the spectators along the trail thought as people ran by...did they think "oh wow, she doesn't look like she's run at all?" or did they think "oh wow!! she looks like death!" We decided we probably looked like death.

This is where we saw our husbands, children and my sister Julianna. (This is where I also started hyperventilating because I saw my family and I knew I was near the end...I kept my composure until this point.) She came and stayed up in Park City with us for the night. It was fun to have her along. She was our comic relief in the hotel the night before.

Here we are all finished!!!

Here are my greatest supporters. Through out the whole training Shay has been very supportive and Nicholas has been too. He would always ask me if I had been running. Thanks for the support! Thank you also to the others who called or supported in other ways. (they had peaches for us at the end of the race and they were delicious. Nice and juicy)

If you would have asked me that day if I was going to do another half marathon I don't know what I would have told you. But now that I've had a few days to recover, my muscles are not aching as much, I can walk without it hurting, I would say definitely. When I don't know, but I will definitely keep up the running and training because I have loved the way it has made me feel. It has been very empowering.