Just Keep Running

It felt so good to scratch off the last week of training. When I made the decision in December to run the Salt Lake Marathon I thought the weeks would fly by. It was much harder than anticipated. There was crazy weather each week to work around, food poisoning hit during one of my long runs, I started getting horrible migraines after some of my long runs and I broke my tooth the night before the race. I started wondering if I should even be running the race. All of the events in Boston weren't reassuring either. Thank goodness I found out the migraines were caused by electrolyte imbalance so drinking more Gatorade took care of that. My tooth didn't hurt so it wasn't a problem for the race. Lastly, I felt relief when the events in Boston wrapped up Friday night.

Then I was so excited to wear my bib. I only slept a few hours Friday night because I was so anxious. It didn't help that I could hear the wind and rain and wondered how bad the weather would be for the race.

Thank goodness they had big tents set up for us to stay dry under until the race started.

This was the view from the starting line. There were so many people and you can feel all of the energy. We had a moment of silence for Boston. Then we started off listening to Sweet Caroline which is played at the Boston Marathon.

It amazed me how many people were out along the race course cheering for all the runners. The rain was coming down and it was cold but that didn't stop people. Ali's family cheered me on at various places along the race course. I appreciated it so much and it was fun to see familiar faces! Katelyn and Drew were so cute and awesome cheer leaders!

I loved running around Sugar House Park during the first few miles. It's a beautiful park.

It's fun running in the rain when its a few miles but it rained the first 16 miles and was so cold. Running in the rain gets a little old after 16 miles. I was soaking wet. I was so happy the rain stopped after that. My clothes dried out a lot with the wind. My hands were cold the whole time. Betsy ran the last few miles with me. She was wearing gloves and I asked her if I could wear them. She's the best and let me wear them the rest of the race. My legs cramped a lot the last 2 miles and I think it must have been from the cold because I had been drinking lots of Gatorade the whole race and ate a banana (which totally helped at my last marathon). It was so fun running with Betsy and she helped push me to the finish.

I had the biggest smile on my face coming into the finish line. You couldn't wipe it off for anything. I finished in 3 hours 53 minutes. I beat my last time by 10 minutes.

I had the best fan club through the race. My Mom, Betsy, Ali's family, Marshall, Lynnlee and Kaden were there along the way. It made me feel so good to have all of their support.

Marathons are addicting! I can't wait to run the next one.