My 13.319 Mile Run Down Cedar Canyon

You know, there are some wonderful and terrible things about blogging. One of those things is the brag factor. I mean, I wouldn't regularly go up to someone and start going off about how incredibly awesome I am...at least not seriously. But with blogging, it's almost like your blog is there to justify bragging. Like you can't go around tooting your own horn cause that's just impolite...but if you blog about your stunning qualities, it's okay cause all you are doing is trying to keep your fellow readers informed about your life...and I mean, you can't really help it if you just so happen to be doing some pretty cool stuff.

And with that introduction I would like to tell you about the half marathon I ran last weekend.

Actually, the story isn't that great. With most races I have a really awesome story to tell at the end. And while I could go off about the various breeds and species of roadkill I encountered, I won't. I'll just give you a run down of the race (ha ha...that was kind of pun-ny! run...get it? Okay, sorry).

In order to inform and educate I will tell you that a regular half marathon is 13.1 miles. But in Cedar City they like to make everything just a little bit better. So they threw on an extra .219 mile on at the end just to show you you could do it. Cause, I mean, I doubted.

And the race was basically completely downhill. That was one of the reasons it was so appealing to me. Downhill? Easy easy. FALSE. My calves were killing me by mile three. I still had 10+ miles to go! At mile 8 I walked. At mile 10 I actually stopped completely in order to stretch my calves that felt like they were falling off. I walked again at the start of mile 11. And again around mile 11.5. When I stopped that time this guy ran past me and said, "Keep going! You've only got a mile left!" Which, when I write it via blogging, it sounds like he was really upbeat and motivational. But he wasn't. If I had had enough energy in me, I would have kicked him in the shins! After I had tripped him, of course. He didn't know how my calves felt!

Overall, I walked a handful of times. Which doesn't make much sense because I beat my time from my last half marathon (which I didn't walk at all during). But I'm not going to complain (except for when my mom told me that they probably didn't time it right. Yeah, she thinks I'm fat).

The end of the race was pretty sweet, though. Like they actually called my name when I came running to the finish line. Plus they had these athletic trainers there who basically yanked and pulled my body for my own good. They called it "stretching." Plus they had RunnerCards, which are these awesome little cards that have your time, place, and pace on it (okay, I'm pretty sure only runners think they are way completely awesome. No one else really cares).

Shortly after the race I had the opportunity to sit in a car for 3 hours while my muscles stiffened. Which meant that the following day I had the opportunity of being told that I "walk like a woman who's pregnant,"(my pregnant cousin agreed...and she knows!) I look like I "just had hip replacement surgery," and I was reminiscent of "an old woman." Yes, I love to run.

The incredibly lame thing is that the camera guys drove past me while I was running and snapped at least 5 pictures...but the ones they decided to put on the web were not of me. I guess I am an ugly runner. Oh, well. So these are pictures of the race that aren't necessarily of me, but at least they give you a feel for the race.

This was the starting line. I know, the energy inside it is palpable.

I think this is when we were waiting for the kid with the cut foot to be towed down the mountain. We were all hypothesizing that the guy just decided he couldn't do the race so he grabbed a smashed beer bottle and...

P.S. You can actually see me in this one if you have ninja skills.
Instructions for seeing me: look at the left-most part of the picture. There's a dude with yellow shorts right on the edge of the pic. Then you see the guy with white shirt and blue shorts then you see the guy with an orange shirt and gray shorts.
Look between them.
You can see these insanely awesome calves that belong to me.
I'm wearing yellow shorts and a white shirt.
I mean, if the calves didn't give me away.

If this picture had been taken like 100 feet back, I would have been in the pic. I was right behind these people for the first half(ish) of the race.

So. All in all, it was a pretty great race. I finished in 1:35:10 (which means I maintained a 7:15 pace throughout the race). I was 5th overall for the women and 2nd in my age group (20-24). Yeah. So that is my bragging. And I was outrageously sore for like 4 days afterward, but I'm probably going to do it again. Cause I love running. Seriously. There's nothing like running down this gorgeous canyon appreciating the beauty of the earth as well as appreciating the fact that I can run.

Good story this guy told me at the beginning of the race:

The winner of some marathon finished the race in 2 hours and 20 minutes (marathons are 26.2 miles...so this guy was freaking hauling). This other guy finished in 5 hours. The slow dude went to the winner and said, "I think it is so amazing that you can run that far in such a short amount of time. It's incredible!" The winner then said to the slow guy, "I'm amazed that you can actually run for 5 hours straight!"

Regardless of my time or how I place I'm just glad that I can run.
Otherwise, I would have missed out on beautiful scenes like this.

THE END