Top of Utah Half Marathon.

Courtnie and I participated in the Top of Utah Half Marathon on August 24^th. This half marathon starts 7 miles up Blacksmith Fork Canyon, zig zags through neighborhoods in Nibley and Providence and ends at a park in Providence. I was so nervous to run this race, mainly because of my lack of training. I had previously ran the American Fork Half Marathon in the middle of June and due to not being able to move my body afterwards I took a week of training off. Then we bought a house which resulted in painting, moving, and cleaning for weeks which sucked all my time and energy. So Needless to say, after taking a month off of training I had a few short weeks to get my butt back in gear. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be. The race snuck up on me and I definitely was not as in shape as I would have liked but what can ya do?

On race day, Courtnie and I got to the finish line around 5:30 am to load the buses up the canyon to the starting line. At 7 am we were able to start our long journey down the canyon. At mile 3 I lost Courtnie. She had to stop at the aid station and I wanted to keep plowing through. She eventually caught up to me around mile 8 and by mile 9 she passed me as I had to make a quick little pit stop at the porta potties. At around mile 10 my legs and knees had had enough. Pain shot through my knees with every stride I took and my legs were starting to cramp. It was not ideal. This is also the point where I kept telling myself “You are never doing a half marathon again. You are a crazy person. What were you thinking?” These thoughts kept running through my head until I crossed the finish line. Then my thoughts turned to, “I wonder which half marathons I should run next year.” I crossed the finish line at 2 hours and 25 minutes, WAY better than I thought I would be. Courtnie was able to cross a few minutes before me as well.

After the half marathon I was able to recover a lot quicker and easier than the previous races. I was not nearly as sore and immobile as before. After two days or so I felt good as new! Thank goodness! I am all done with races for the year but have big plans for next year. So the training continues...