ST. GEORGE MARATHON--OCTOBER 6, 2007

26.2 Miles!!! I can't believe I actually did it. I signed up for the St. George Marathon in April and figured that it would be good excercise to train for a marathon. I have trained for marathons in the past but have never actually run a full marathon. I have done several half marathons before but not a full. Needless to say once the end of August came around and I started getting busy with house stuff, work and nervous about Laura taking her dental hygiene exam, I quit training. I decided that I would start the race but then I would catch the looser bus when I couldn't run anymore. Then I decided not to even run the race about a week before but that since I paid for the race that I would pick up my shirt and go to the expo. Well going to the expo got me pumped up and so did Laura's cousin, Tiffany, who was running the race too. She convinced me to sign up under a pace setter and since I haven't been training I figured it might take me five hours at least to realistically finish without killing myself. However she has signed up under the 4 hr 15 min pace setter and I couldn't let a girl out run me. So I signed up under the 4:15 with the option of catching the drop out bus when I couldn't run anymore. I knew that 4:15 would be a challenge since I hadn't trained. ( Just to inform you 4:15 is not that fast for a competitive marathoner. Had I trained right I should finish in 3 hrs 10 min. ) Well the die hard marathoner that Tiffany is, decided that we would be the first on the bus that left at 4:30 am because they were giving away free prizes to the early birds. So we got up at 3 am to get ready and went down to catch the bus. There were tons of people already there and we didn't get any prize. So we road the bus to the starting line where they had hot chocolate and bon fires set up and waited for 2 hrs. (I will never wake up that early again to get a prize, I could have slept for 2 more hours). I was already exhausted. The race started at 6:45. We found our pace setter and started running. I was so cold for the first 9 miles and then the sun came up over the mountain and it got hot really fast. The St George marathon is mostly a downhill race which is nice but when there is an uphill its difficult. So Tiffiany and I were running side by side with the pace setter until after we had hit a few of the big hills and Tiffany seemed to be slowing down. At mile 14 I knew that if I didn't pick it up that I would not finish so I left Tiffany behind and caught up to the pace setter. By mile 18 my left leg was numb. I could not feel it hit the ground anymore and I had to concentrate on lifting it up off the ground to keep going. I thought I was done for. When we came up on the 19th mile I stopped to get a drink and realized that if quit walking I wouldn't finish the race beause I hurt bad so I kept jogging (obviously not the smartest move on my part). In order to overcome the pain I started talking to other racers and before I knew it I was at mile 23 where Laura was waiting on the side lines cheering me on. I felt inspired and I knew at that point I was going to finish the race however I didn't know if I was going to have to walk it. I began talking to the pace setter to keep my mind off of my leg...I was the only one left who had stuck with her throughout the entire race so I had her full attention, she was a beast...and at mile 25 I got a second wind and sprinted for the finish line. I ended up finishing in 4 hrs 13 min and 47 sec just right before my goal of 4 hrs 15 mins.
Anyway here are some pictures of the race. The one at the door is right before we left to caught the buses. I hope you enjoyed my story.