Saint George Half Marathon

Yesterday I did something I had never done before. I ran a half marathon. That is 13.1 miles of running. And it was AWESOME!

I did it with some friends from work and my roommate. We did the Dirty Dash earlier and now we did the Saint George Half. It really did feel good and I had a great experience doing it.

Tonya and I went down to Saint George with our friend Jeff from work and his wife, Julie. We talked and laughed the whole way down to Saint George.

Tonya and I stayed at one of our favorite hotel chains, Knight's Inn. We stayed at one in Denver, but this one was a lot more well kept up. It was nice for us (and not too expensive)!

We woke up early yesterday morning and ate some yummy breakfast. I had some oatmeal and a banana. Then our room was a little bit cool, so we got back into our beds and too a little nap until Jeff and Julie came.

So here is our before-race photo. Dad, I don't know if you can see it or not, but I am wearing my Crooked Pole Tipi Works viser. I think it was lucky!

Our orange shirts say CTL. Every year the CTL buys t-shirts for everyone at work and this year we asked if we could get some tech-shirts for running rather than the regular cotton t-shirts. We had to pay a little extra, but they are fun to wear. I like the color too!

The course was interesting because part of it went through the city and then it went out along the river and the freeway in St. George. We looped around a couple of times. I guess I must have been deep in thought throughout the whole race because I was listening to a book on my iPod. I listened to the first three chapters of the book two times and all I know about the book is there was a picture of a boat on a wall and it looked like the waves were really moving and some boy's cousins were coming to visit and he liked to torment them. (Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis. I'm sure it is a really good book!) Other than that, I was listening for the voice in my iPod that says "one mile completed...You are at the halfway point. Only 6.5 miles to go...one mile to go...400 meters to go...congratulations you have completed a half marathon. Time: 2:23. Distance 13.1 miles. Rate: 11.02 minutes per mile. Thank you Lori, Jordan, and Mckenzie for the running chip. It works great! And those were my stats. I felt fine about those, especially because I ran last weekend the same amount of time, but only ran about 11 miles. I felt good about it!

Here is the post-race picture. Kj and Jessica, I loved the water bottle belt. It is really handy to carry water and the phone and snacks and whatever else you can fit in it. It is great!

We don't look too much different from our pre-race picture. It was exciting! Tonya and Jeff finished about 30 minutes before I did, so they came back and met me where I had about 1/2 mile left.

I am really glad I did it. While we were there, we signed up to do the Utah Valley full Marathon in June, so we will be spending the next few months training and increasing our distance so we can run a full 26.2 miles. It really will be awesome!Who would have thought?

Afterwards, we went back to the hotel and took the best shower ever! It felt so good! We went and ate at Cafe Rio and then went to the outlet mall and found some nice shirts for $2.99. Then we drove home. Today I feel great! I have been so hungry though! I have eaten a lot of meals and snacks!