American Fork Canyon Half Marathon.

This past Saturday I ran the American Fork Canyon Half Marathon, my very first half marathon. To say it was fun and exciting and thrilling would be straight out lying. Honestly, it was hard work, exhausting, and I was unable to move my body for days afterwards. Was it worth it? Absolutely! Will I do it again? You betcha. Actually I am registered for another one next month.  

Race day started out very early, “3:30 am” early to be exactly. I met up with my dad who was also running and we ventured onto American Fork High School. From there we loaded buses and headed up the canyon to the starting line. We had to sit at the starting line for about 45 minutes as we waited for the rest of the buses full of runners to arrive. It was freezing up there, the lines to use the restrooms were long, and anxiety was kicking in. I could not wait to get going.

The starting gun finally went off at 6 am sharp. It was chaos as 2,100 runners were trying to fit through a little opening to begin the race. The first couple of miles went by quick as we were running with a herd of people, trying to avoid being trampled, and trying to set a good pace as to not die before we made it to the finish line. Slowly the people were being weeded out but my dad and I stayed strong. My dad is seriously the best! I absolutely loved running with him. He was my motivator to keep going. Once I hit mile 9 or 10 my legs were starting to feel like jello, my knees were aching, and I felt like I hit a wall. My dad was my silent motivator to keep going. I didn’t want to slow him down any so I kept pushing through.

13.1 miles later I finally crossed the finish line!

There are very few feelings greater than crossing that line and putting the finisher’s medal around your neck. My dad and I both crossed the line at the same time at a time of 2 hours and 19 minutes. My goal time was 2 hours 30 minutes so I was thrilled we finished even faster than anticipated. In the end, I am happy that I can finally mark “Run a Half Marathon” off my bucket list. It is something I have wanted to do for a long time yet lacked the motivation or support to do it. One of the driving forces behind my desire to run this time around was to lose some of the baby weight I put on while I was pregnant with Kennadi which makes me happy to report that most of my pre-pregnancy clothes are a little baggy now! I consider all the training and the race a success!

Now the training begins for the next race…