Salt Lake Half Marathon

Well, don't ask me why, but I did it again.  And it was pretty miserable...again.  Julia and I swear we will never do it again!  Last December I was sitting around with my family, and I offered the challenge - "If anyone will run the Salt Lake City Half Marathon in April, I will run it with you."  We have a trip to Maui coming up on May 5th, so I was thinking it would be a good way to get in shape for the trip.  Well, Dane said he'd do it, so Julia went ahead and signed up.  WHY???  Well, somehow April 21st was rapidly approaching and I had still not trained for the race, or even registered!  It costs $90!  That is insane!  Dane, by this point had backed out, and so my plan to help my family get in better shape had gone down the tubes!  Well, I couldn't let Julia down, and my parents had us each make goals in 4 categories this year - Spiritual, Educational, Physical, and Social, and my physical goal was this race.  So a week before the race I said to Julia, "well, should we train a little bit?"  We ran 7 miles that day.  It was fine, but it was half way.  The night before the race Julia stayed the night at our house so that we could drive together, and you know the bible says - If ye are prepared ye shall not fear, well lets just say I was scared! 
We ran a pretty slow steady pace all the way to about mile 10.  I was pretty proud!  Very slow though.  About 11-11.30 minute miles.  When we got to 10 is when it started getting really hard.  Our bodies were hurting, and we started on a gradual incline up State street to South Temple.  UPHILL SUCKS!  It wasn't until we had about half a mile left that we turned down South Temple towards The Depot.  We could see the finish line!  Both of us had started cramping in our legs, but we grabbed hands and just kept running!  There were so many people along the road cheering people on, and we spotted my mom and dad!  Yay!  We're almost there!  Then a minute later we saw Brock, Jace, and Leila!  (Nixon was at his soccer game)  We crossed the finish line at about 2 hours 40 minutes.  Slower than last time by about 5 minutes.  Bummer.  So even though my legs cramped at mile 8 last time, and it was the worst thing I could imagine, I was trained and ready.  There is definitely something to be said for training for something like this!  I honestly don't think I'll be doing a  half marathon again.  I just don't like running.  I wish I did.  I thought that training, and doing a race like this, would get me to like it, but I don't.  There are just so many other things I LIKE doing for exercise.  I am so glad it's over, and glad I could do it with my sister again!

We're in the red

Almost there!

With our medals.  The only thing that makes it worth it!

Mom and Dad

My cute family - minus Nixon  The shadows are pretty annoying.  Jace wanted my medal.