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. :)