Go BIG

Last Saturday Carson and I ran our first half marathon.  The course was the inaugural Big Cottonwood half. It was BEAUTIFUL!


We decided to spend the night up at Carson's parents house so that we wouldn't have to wake up as early. Also Laurie was going to watch James anyway, so that way we could just let him sleep.

We woke up at 4:30am to get ready and head out.  We drove over to the finish, parked, and loaded the bus that took us up to the starting line which was just below Solitude.  Good thing they provided mylar blankets because it was Fuh-reezing!!

before the race...we look like we got bad spray tans :)

At 6:30am it was time to begin!  We ran in the complete darkness for about half an hour before the sun starting peeking up behind the mountains and it probably took about that long for my legs to stop feeling like they were frozen ice blocks.

We thoroughly enjoyed running with each other and getting to watch the sunrise which highlighted the beautiful changing leaves.

It was interesting to watch people too since we had been training just the two of us.  There was one girl who drove us CRAZY!  She came up from behind us on my left (Carson was to my right) and then cut RIGHT in front of me.  Ok, I'm totally fine with this IF YOU'RE GOING TO SPEED UP!...no, she SLOWED DOWN! Carson and I didn't even say anything, just looked at each other and went around her and got ahead of her again.  Then a few minutes later she pushes forward and passes us again and we see her cut someone else off!  She was driving us insane so we pushed hard and got a good distance ahead of her :)

There were drink/restroom stations every 2 miles throughout the course.  A little after mile 6, I felt the need to urinate. Boo.  We were hoping to not have to stop.  So I thought well, I'll see how far I can go.  Oh, it got uncomfortable very quickly! haha Mile 8 couldn't get there fast enough. So at mile 8 I did my business and bolted out of there.  Carson was so nice to wait for me.  We sprinted to make up our time (and pass that crazy cutter-offer girl that had then gotten ahead of us).

We ended up coming in at 1:51 which was great! About 20 minutes quicker than what we had expected based on our training....mind you, we were practically rolling down the canyon :)

We were really sore after the race for about 4-5 days and my foot really started hurting the evening of the race but I think it was just deep bruising from the pounding.  It is starting to feel better.

We started training at the beginning of July.  It was definitely a roller coaster ride....I HATED training but it feels SO good to have accomplished something we worked so hard for!

look who came out to see us finish!

best running partner ever