Okay, okay, I'm making it sound much worse than it actually was. Even though it's Wednesday I am still in a little bit of pain from my run on Saturday (I think it's achilles tendonitis), it did feel really good to cross that finish line, and I am proud that I can count "running a half marathon" as an accomplishment.
By the way, when I say "run", what I mean is "jog/walk". Just so we're clear.
Last Saturday, the 16th, my mom, our friend Heather, and I met in the lobby of the Sheraton at at bright-eyed-and-bushy-tailed 5:45 am along with our friend Sarah and her sister who ran the 5K. We took the TRAX train up to the University of Utah where we joined 8000+ people for the Salt Lake City Marathon/ Half Marathon. The energy at the starting line was palpable, and it was really fun to take part in such a big event.
My mom broke her arm in a skiing accident a couple of months ago and just got her cast off last week, so we agreed to take it easy. This was also my first (and probably last) half marathon-- the greatest distance I'd run until Saturday was a 10K back in November '07. Needless to say, I was glad to have a partner in taking it slow!
I actually felt really good (not fast, but good) through mile 10-- so good, in fact, that I took a little picture of the mile marker and thought, "hey! Only 3 more miles! I can do this!" I'm pretty sure those were my thoughts about 10 seconds before I completely hit a wall. Those last three miles felt like another ten! After what seemed like an eternity of robotic slow-jog motion, I finally reached the finish line, finally crossed it, and finally got my little medal that proves that I did it. Yay! Whew!
I'm purposely not sharing my time-- if you've run a half marathon, you'll laugh, and if you haven't, it won't mean anything to you anyway. Let's just say that slow and steady will probably not win the race, but it does finish. Eventually. :)
After the race was over and I had guzzled two little chugs of chocolate milk, we hurried back to the hotel so I could shower and meet up with my boys for our traditional Utah Spring Scrimmage day.
We met Gramm & Gramp at Hire's, then went up to Rice Eccles Stadium to watch next season's Utes. I didn't watch a lot of football because I was busy watching these little stinks:
Grammuh let Gordon use her camera-- brave!!-- and he was so excited to take pictures of the players.
After the game, Tom and Chris went down on the field (Neil was asleep in my arms, I was too sore to move, and Gordon was in trouble) and had fun seeing the field up close.
We visited Chris' grandpa that afternoon, but I was with a sleeping Neil in the car most of the time and didn't get any pictures. I'm hoping Gramm will pass some along!