Big Cottonwood Half Marathon

A few of my friends decided they wanted to run the Big Cottonwood Half Marathon and invited me to join.  I was a little nervous to commit at first because I hadn't really ran since my last half which was last October and had just had Rebel.  I decided that I would do it but not be so worried about training.  I went into it knowing that if I had to walk I would and if my time was slower than last time, then that was ok.  I trained with my good friend Jodi and we would run a 2 or 3 miles a couple of times a week and then would try and do a longer one on the weekend.  There were a lot of times where we were walking and we never did run further than 8 miles, which we did the week before our half.  We left on Friday morning and had a fun day shopping and eating in Salt Lake.  We picked up our packets and bibs and then enjoyed more shopping and eating.  That night we didn't go to bed until late but I was never nervous because I was going in to this just for the fun!

The next morning we woke up early and had to catch the bus around 4:30am!  Super early!!  When we got up to the starting point, it was freezing cold and my nerves started to kick in! I was getting super excited and I could feel the adrenaline.  The gun sounded and we started running and I was loving every minute of it!  It's hard to explain the atmosphere but it is so much fun being with so many runners of different skill levels.  Jodi, Ashlee and I stayed with each other the whole time and Natalie kind of broke off from the group around mile 3.  The first 8 or 9 miles had at least a little bit of a decline to them for the most part and so we were able to cruise! The scenery was beautiful down the canyon and it made it that much more enjoyable! About mile 12 I remember thinking that there was no way I could keep running!  It was more of a mental block than physical but I just kept trying to focus in on my music.  It was around that 12th mile that we realized we were in front of the 2 hour pacers and realized there was a chance we may run it in under 2hrs!!  What?!  I was expecting to run it in 2hrs and 30 minutes or so!  We never ran fast enough miles in training to be able to do it even close to 2hrs.  That was motivation enough to just keep running!  We ended up running it in 1hr and 58 minutes!! I was in shock and so excited all at the same time!  What a fun and neat experience!  I doubt I will ever be able to run a half that fast again but I don't plan on it being my last race either!:)