This last weekend my daughter and I ran in the St George Utah Marathon. We had a lot of fun driving there. We always stop in Jacob's Lake and get cookies. It is a highlight of the drive. The peanut butter chocolate chip is now my favorite instead of the chocolate parfait. I love driving by Lee's Ferry and Vermillion Cliffs, it is one of the Lord's finest creations. It is considered a very sacred and spiritual place by the Navajos and I agree.
It was the 3rd time I have ran in the St George marathon. The race started out really good. I was making good time and felt strong. But about 10 miles in, it started getting a little warmer and the up hills were wearing me down. They said it was the warmest it has ever been at the starting line. I was walking at every water station which was every two miles except for the last 6 miles I started taking one minute walk breaks every 4 minutes just so I could finish. I must have started out too fast and probably only 2 hours sleep the night before didn't help. I have trained in the heat all summer which was much hotter where I live than it was there. Over all I did really well. I had no cramping which I had last time. I attribute that to taking Endurolytes every hour, gu's every 45 minutes, drinking a cup of water at every station and sipping on water with Nuun in it that I carried in my Nathan water pack. I didn't have any stomach issues after the race which I always have had in the past. The down hills always take more of a toll on your body than you would think. I finished with a 4:45 which is my second best time. If I had just done a couple things differently I know I could have pr'd. My best time is a 4:40 which wouldn't have been hard to beat. Oh well no biggy! I am very excited to have finished number 3. It is such an amazingly beautiful race.
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| Beautiful Sunrise |
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| Veyo Hill |
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| Snow Canyon |
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| 26.2 |
No one saw me come through the finish line. My daughter was feeling very sick and my husband and son had to tend to her so they missed me. She finished with a 3:49 which was great. It was still the greatest feeling ever to cross the finish line and know you can finally stop running. I compare it to childbirth. You push yourself to the limits and go through so much pain and then all of a sudden the baby is born and the pain is over and you get the beautiful reward of all the hard work. There is no greater feeling than that.
My hubby and I drove back home together. We had a great drive home. The highlight was listening to General Conference on the radio in the car. We hit a huge down pour of rain in Flagstaff and we had fun listening to Netflicks for the last 2 hours of the drive. The 7 hour drive flew by.
