James loved running the half marathon. He felt so good after. So he told me he wanted to run a marathon. I told him that he was half way there as far as training goes so if he was serious, I would train him and run with him. I gave him a few weeks to see if he was really serious. We ran ten miles the week after the race, then thirteen the week after that. Then we ran fifteen the week after that and he was still wanting to go along with the training. So we signed up for the Utah Valley Marathon. I ran it a few years ago so I know the course and the race support is good. Plenty of water and fuel stops along the way. I will never run the Deseret News Marathon again because it was the hottest time of the year and there weren't not enough water stations. The race has some uphill but not too much and some downhill but not too much. We can train from our house and get the hills and downhills that we need.
We ran seventeen miles this morning. It was the perfect temperature and so beautiful. This hot air balloon went right over us on the Murdock trail-have I mentioned how much I love this trail! We listened to a book to pass the time. He put an airpod in his ear and I put the other one in my ear. We stopped at Hart's in Cedar Hills to refill our water. There were plenty of honey-buckets along the way thanks to construction. We went north from our house past the cemetery and over to Highland and then back home through American Fork. I love how I can find new routes for each marathon I've trained for. When I ran the Big Cottonwood I trained a lot running down Suncrest. I ran the Jordan River trail a lot while training for the Salt Lake Marathon and Ogden Marathon. I had a route to Alpine to train for the Top of Utah Marathon. Having a new route makes it fun.
It's also fun having a running buddy. Running a marathon was not on my to-do list for the year. I really liked my triathlon last year so I thought I would do another one and spend the spring and summer training. I still can but it's fun training with James and I'm glad he is pushing me to run another marathon. Hopefully he can help me qualify for Boston in future years since I haven't been able to do it on my own.
