Ogden Marathon

So, this one time I ran a marathon. And it was a huge deal! You would not believe the amount of time and training that goes into running one of those things! And to add to the difficulty, I had to finish all of my weekday workouts by 7am so Joseph could get to work. Some of those weekday workouts were 10 miles in the mountains. I was very tired for all of the month of April. Anyhoo, I got through it and then on the evening of May 14th I flew out to SLC.

The next day (Friday) was so busy that I wasn't able to get to bed until around 12:30, which was bad because I had to wake up at 3:25 the morning of the race. But, I made it to the start okay, stood around in the FREEZING cold and occasional flurry for over an hour, and then started running. Too bad the rain started right as the race did. And didn't let up the entire time. I remember being soaked through at the one-mile marker and thinking to myself, "25 more miles of this?!?" And I remember contemplating stopping around mile 6 but then thinking that I had put in too many miles (and told too many people!) to stop so I just kept going. After that there wasn't any question in my mind about whether or not I would finish. I just plugged along, losing more and more of the feeling in my hands.

But. The course was beautiful. And it was so well supported. And finishing was one of the most amazing feelings I've ever had. I was grinning like an idiot as I crossed that line! Moments later I was planning out next year and how it would be way better. So, overall, a great experience! But I sure am glad to have all that training behind me!

Unfortunately, I had my number covered the whole time, so I don't have any pictures of myself running. I did manage to find a few by looking someone else's bib number up, but they're horrible anyway, so no big loss there. Here are some other pictures from that weekend though!

I spent some time at Temple Square, wandering and trying to stay out of the rain.

I always love the flowers there.

And I found one of my favorite young women from Austin in the visitors' center! Yay! (Too bad I look homeless... I hadn't washed my hair in a while and I also under-packed and ran out of non-running tops.)

 My friend was texting me these sunny California pictures from the school walk-a-thon as I was enduring the depressingly gray and drizzly Utah weather.

And I was able to spend some time with my supermodel sisters (while Eric did dishes in the background).

I had promised Emily months ago that we would go get pedicures after my marathon, so we finally went and did that on Memorial Day. It was pretty fun. I should probably run another marathon just so we can do this again. :)

It was such a fun and memorable weekend! If any of you out there are considering running a marathon, do it!