Three Guys and a Girl: The St. George Marathon

This year I decided to put biking on the back burner and focus on running a marathon!

It didn't seem like it would be that big of deal.... the training would take a lot less time than training for LOTOJA and I have run a million half marathons.... how hard could it be????

the answer is, very HARD!!!

Thanks goodness I had so many other friends in the ward doing it or I would have dropped out!

I mostly trained with my friend Hillary and we followed a 12 or 16 week training program. At first it was super simple, a couple of 13 milers, a 14, a 15.... no big deal! But once we got above 19 it was brutal!!!

The runs were hot and aweful, but even worse were all of the injuries I started getting!

First I hurt my achilles on my right foot, once I nursed that back to health, I majorly started having pain in the arch of my left foot. One morning we started a 20 mile run bright and early and my foot started throbbing from the first step. There were defiantly times I did not know if the marathon was really going to be possible. I finally went and saw a foot Dr who set me up with some insoles and shoes with better support. Slowly that change started to help and by the end of our training I didn't feel ready, but I had ran all of the training runs.

My goal was to get under 4 hours. When I first thought of doing a marathon that seemed like a no brainer. Once we started getting into long runs, I seriously didn't think 4 hours was realistic at all!!! Before I knew it the day of the race had come. It had been so hot in St. George, but we were lucky and it looked like the high was going to be mid 80's. Hillary, Alicia (who refused to do any training with me ;-) and I rode the long bus ride up together. In my mind I had decided that I would stay with Hillary until mile 13 and then I would put in my music and let her run ahead. The first 13 miles went fine. Miles 7-11 were all up hill which sucked, but I got through them and by mile 13 I was ready to put in my music!!! Scott and the kids were planning to be at Snow Canyon which was about mile 16 so I was looking forward to that! When I got there I didn't see them, but Hillary's husband had a little drink for me that I could carry so I felt okay. The next 6 miles were okay, not bad, but not great. A friend from work was going to be at mile 23 with a coke and I knew the sugar and caffeine would give me the boost that I would need to finish. When I finally got to mile 23 she was no where to be found!!! A few minutes later I saw Scott and he had a drink and a cold, wet towel for me. By this point I wasn't feeling great, but I knew that I could make it in under 4 hours without a problem. At mile 24 I saw McCall from work, standing there with my coke. She told me that she was off on what mile she would be at. I was thinking that was a big deal.... but I was so happy to see her and know that I only had 2 miles left. The last 2 were slow and felt like a dream, but when I saw the finish I seriously got emotional. I had done it!!!!

My final time ended up being 3 hours and 53 minutes. I was so grateful that I had met my time goal, because there was no way I was doing that crap again! Overall, the race went really good. It was never awful and I realized that all of the hundreds of miles put in had prepared me!!! Everyone from my ward did so good! Hillary qualified for Boston by a long shot and Alicia met her time goal by almost 40 minutes!!! I was seriously so happy for them, especially Alicia because now we could move on and get back to biking!!! Hillary on the other hand has to now train for the Boston Marathon!!! Will I ever run another Marathon????, probably.... Will it be anytime even remotely soon???, NOPE!