Hurricane Half Marathon

Anyone that's been around me lately, knows that I've been training for a half marathon.  Crazy, I know.  I've never been much of a runner, so it was a random thing to attempt at 34 years old, but Why Not?  Well, on April 30th, I finally accomplished this crazy goal.  Here are the photos to prove it.

My sister Jill flew down for the event, and we drove up Friday morning with the kids.  Drew's parents met us in St. George to watch the kids at the hotel.  They are so wonderful.  After we were settled at the hotel we drove to Hurricane to check out the course.  It seemed OK, until we saw mile 5, which was a crazy steep hill that lasted for 3/4 of a mile.  I hadn't trained on hills so it didn't look good.  We both started laughing when we saw it for the first time.  Luckily I only had a few hours to worry about it.  We went back to the hotel and tried our best to go to sleep.  Then we woke up at 4:30 am, which was 3:30 from where I come from.  We parked at the finish line and jumped aboard one of 7 school buses to drive us to the starting line.  It was absolutely the coldest day in the past month.  Not sure how that happened, but it happened.  Here is a photo of us freezing our buns off waiting for the gun to fire.  I had to run with my phone to get these not so great quality shots.  At least it's something.

Here's Geneva in her awesome $3 pants she bought from Walmart the night before.  She was much more prepared than I.  I was super jealous.

I started off really slow and ran by Jill for the first 5 miles.  It seemed like it would be a nice day, so Jill ditched her jacket at the first water station before we hit the hill.  We ran up half the hill together, but Jill decided it was time for her to walk and that's where we were separated.  I had it in my head that I was going to run the whole darn thing, even if I was going at a snails pace.  The hill was torture and I was excited to get to the top to find some relief.  It was short lived.  Apparently the hill was shielding us from the monster winds on the other size.  Not just any wind, but a freezing head wind for the rest of the race. I was dying, but I kept on going.  By mile 11, I still wasn't sure I was going to make it or not.  I wanted to flag down one of those ambulances and hitch a ride, but I kept pushing forward and finished the race in 2 hours, 22 minutes, and 22 seconds.  Not fabulous, but decent.  I had a vision in my mind of sprinting to the finish line.  Not so much!  I was dragging!!!  But I ran the whole time and I was proud of myself for that.  Jill wasn't far behind me.  She finished in 2 hours and 35 minutes.  Here are some photos of her final stretch.  

I was freezing when we finally stopped running.  I could hardly hold still, I was shivering so bad.

 Here is a photo of the great gals that ran with me.  Minus April, who finished shortly after this was taken (sadly she injured her knee on the hill)- I wish she could have been in the shot.  It was a crazy day, and an eye opening experience (on how INSANE people are that run FULL marathons).  But I must say, I am very proud of my sister and myself.  I guess anything is possible.

Geneva:  1 hour 59 minutes (SUPER AWESOME)
Marquessa:  2 hours 5 minutes
Melissa:  2 hours 22 minutes
Jill: 2 hours 35 minutes
April: 3 hours 11 minutes

After the race we packed up and quickly drove home for some evening craziness at the airport.  - Drew we love you!  It was a really physically and emotionally exhausting day for our family.  I know I've learned so much from this experience.