Monday, October 11, 2010

Video of run

It was Camerons first time using the video camera on our camera to film me running. Um yeah, you can tell it was his first time. I still wanted to post it though because it's all I have. This was me at the end of 26 miles...so beat. Enjoy. :)haha

Saturday, October 2, 2010

My race results are in...


After a week of sleepless nights due to major anxiety over this race, I was nervous to say the least. Last night we checked into our hotel at 9:30pm in St. George and I pretended to go to sleep by 11 since I had to be up at 4:15am to leave for the race. Of course I didn't sleep a wink. After we boarded the buses that took us 26 miles up the canyon we got out to find it warm (it was a record for the warmest start time EVER). That worried me since it's usually freezing at 6am and I run much better in the cold than heat. 7,700 runners started at 6:45, me included. I had originally planned on running with the pace team to get my 3:40 finishing time, but I was ahead of them from the start and decided I better not chance waiting for them to catch up...so it was just me and my garmin. Have I ever mentioned how I LOVE my watch? It's amazing and made all the difference. So the race started and by mile 2 I was hot..not good. I ran hard, the hardest I ever ran. I decided to try and stay under an 8:20 min mile. One of the many hard parts was Veyo Canyon. That is the infamous volcano hill you have to run up for about a mile straight and it kills. So that slowed me a bit...but I never stopped running. I knew that at the half mark (13.1) I needed to be at 1 hour 49 min. I was at 1hour 50min. It was then that I knew if I didn't pull out all I had that I very possibly could miss the Boston qualifying time by 1min. or something totally defeating. So after that I tried to stay at an 8min. mile. The problem were the hills. St. George has a lot of downhill, but I forgot how much uphill there is too. Sprinting uphill at an 8min. pace kicks your butt very, very fast! At mile 20 my time was 2hours 45 min. Once I realized that I only had 6 left and that I was very possibly going to get Boston I was thrilled, but also knew I couldn't let up at all. So I didn't. Instead I experienced every emotion possible. I cried, I had a few hopeless feelings, at times I thought for sure that I was crazy...I mean who does this??? I had major highs of endorphins, but mainly I just keep kicking, and kicking as hard and fast as my body would allow. I finally saw Cameron at the last mile and I only had about 400meters left. I was a little over 3:30 and knew that I had Boston. Those last .2 of 26.2 miles were purely torture. I wanted to walk, actually I wanted to crawl or just fall over and never move my body again. Instead I kicked harder and crossed the finish line with a time of 3hours and 35 min and 28seconds.

One of the best accomplishments of my life. By far the hardest physical thing I have ever done, but one of the best achieved goals that I have experienced. I loved it! So many emotions, but a feeling of thankfulness for it all keeps running through my thoughts. Thankful that I know that even at times in life when we feel things are out of reach, they really can be reached.
Of course I am hobbling around, but I'm not complaining.

Just wanted to share my stats for the race
Out of 7,700 runners from the start only 5,694 finished. Out of that I placed 952 overall. There were 2,455 women who ran and I placed 186 out of them. For my age group 25-29yr olds I placed 28.
Now tonight we are packing to leave first thing in the morning for Hawaii. I think that is just the right recovery for all those miles. :)