Halloween Half Marathon 2012

Guess what? I did it! I finished my Half Marathon!! Get ready for picture overload!!!

The day before the race, I was wanting to take REALLY good care of my body. I had read that you should take a rest day and not exercise, but there was no way I was going to miss Turbo Kick if Brynne was going. We ended up doing my favorite round {Round 51} but we didn't do the full round - just did punches, 2 turbo's, recovery & finale which equals a much shorter workout than normal. Then it was off to work, making sure to drink TONS of water all day long and eat as clean as possible!!

Breakfast was Strawberry Shakeology {Sabrina brought it to Turbo for me - isn't she AWESOME?!} with banana & almond milk! SO DELICIOUS!  

Morning snack was baby carrots, cucumber slices & grape tomatoes. This is my morning snack every single day haha. I just love it!

Lunch was a salad with green peppers, tomatoes & carrots with fat free ranch dressing

Awesome dressing  cup that snaps into the lid for my salad!

And leftovers from the night before. We had chicken in the crockpot, and I had it over broccoli instead of noodles. So lunch contained a TON of veggies for me!

Afternoon snack was an apple. Dinner was homemade "instant" mac & cheese in the microwave with a granola bar & a fiber one brownie. Trying to get more carbs than normal at dinner time while sticking to my calories was kinda hard!

I drink a lot of water every day, but I drank a TON of water the day before the race. This water bottle is my favorite - I got it from the Zumbathon in September and it turns blue when the water is cold!

After dinner I got the chance to watch 2 adorable girls in our ward {the Lovell's} for a few minutes while they were waiting for their grandparents to come from Cedar City. It was so fun - I love those little girls so much!!

Sydney {left} and Kirra! Collette {little sister} was sleeping! Sydney was in my Nursery class!

Aren't they cute??





As soon as grandparents came, I went home and went to bed! Going to bed at 8:30 on a Friday night felt REALLY lame but I knew I needed the sleep since my alarm was going off REALLY early the next morning...

That's AM. EARLY HUH?!?!

All dressed and ready to go! I got my Mario shirt at Wal Mart. In the youth section. And it fits. AND IT WASN'T THE BIGGEST SIZE THEY HAD!! I WORE CHILDRENS CLOTHES!!!!!!

My race bib! Runner # 7254

He came down with a pretty nasty cold that week and STILL woke up to see me off. At 4 AM! Seriously, I don't know how I got so lucky. My husband is amazing!

Everyone told me not to eat breakfast because I normally workout on an empty stomach but race didn't start until 9:20 and I knew I would be sick if I didn't eat anything all morning so I made a Chocolate Shakeology Shake {Sabrina, you are amazing for bringing me 2 samples!} with peanut butter in it. Protein is ALWAYS how I start my day and I didn't want to throw myself off too bad.

And then I left my house, knowing that when I came back I would be in so much pain but it would be over and I wouldn't have to be scared or stressed anymore. My mom has a friend who also lives in Eagle Mountain who wanted to ride to the race with me so we met at the Maverick just down the street from my house. Her name is Jennifer and this was her second half marathon. She had some really good advice, and it was nice talking to someone as I drove to Brynne's so that I wouldn't panic. We picked Brynne up and then drove to University Mall where the buses were. I hadn't thought about what I was going to do with my keys and was kinda freaking out a little bit until Brynne suggested I just lock them in the car so that I don't have to run with them and have Jake bring up a spare. She is a thinker huh?! We got all our gear out, locked the car and got on the bus!

We got on the second bus. We had thought there would be a BILLION people there {it was about 5:30} but there wasn't - we just walked right on. The bus was warm and the energy was already pretty awesome, and it's still 3.5 hours to race start. As soon as the bus was full, we started up Provo Canyon towards Sundance.

Mario & Luigi, complete with mustaches thanks to Susan {Brynne's mom in law}

Don't we look attractive? We don't look creeper AT ALL haha!

View of the bus. Lame picture I know but I want to remember this haha.

That bus ride was awful. The bus driver got lost. And couldn't back up or turn around up the narrow canyon parking lot roads and the bus kept sliding out of gear and he hit a few curbs and it was just scary. He was freaking out and yelling and getting angry and EVERYONE on the bus was getting motion sick. If you know me, you know I get motion sick SO easy. I thought I was going to throw up. I haven't prayed that hard in a long time haha. I was begging Heavenly Father to get me off that bus without losing my breakfast. I HAD to do this race and I did NOT want to start it out by throwing up! Everyone on the bus was freaking out and asking if we could get off and just walk and he wouldn't let anyone off. Eventually, he got us to where the warming tent was and it was the original place we had gone and that he thought was the wrong place so he left. It was just a joke. Because the weather had been cold all week and there was snow up the canyon, they had to change our starting point which led to mass miscommunication on where to drop off the runners. But we got there, and beat all the other buses up despite the ride taking almost 2 hours. We got off the bus, used the nice clean porta potties and went into the tent to wait.

People had some awesome costumes!! So what do we decide to do while we wait 2 hours for the race to start? We take pictures of them of course!

The pope

Cindy Lou Hoo

Twister - Brynne knows this girl too! Small world!

Golfer! I love his hat!!

The Joker. AWESOME huh? He looks JUST like Heath Ledger!

Captain America, Thor & the Hulk. Captain America & Thor were together, but the Hulk was seperate. I asked them to stand by each other for a picture and they ended up staying by each other all night and took 3rd in the costume contest!

Our favorite! Ezma & Emperor Kuzco from Emperor's New Groove! They won the costume contest!!

I ran into one of my favorite customers from the bank in PG! Jason Whaley! And he was planning on running the whole thing, no stopping, without ANY training for it! He is hard core!!

The tent got pretty full pretty fast so we went to stake a spot and sat down and made friends with some girls while we went through our play lists and added any last minute songs. I also downloaded a few apps that would track distance and my steps since my replacement fitbit didn't come in time. LAME HUH?? It was on the porch when we got back from the race. At least I have it now though! Anyway, back to downloading apps. I didn't end up using any of them, but it was nice to see that so many were available if I ever want to use them again!

Brynne suggested we try to call our Uncle Gordon and see if we could find him and then he just happened to walk by us! We stayed with him the rest of the pre race wait time. He has done multiple Ironman & Triathalons and is just a hard core athlete. He had some good advice for after the race, and it was just nice to talk and not focus on feeling nervous. And we talked about food haha. All the yummy things we wanted to eat afterwards that we normally wouldn't eat but because of how many calories we were about to burn it would be ok!

Isn't his shirt awesome??

Around 7:45 we ate our pre race fuel - a banana and a Luna Protein bar that was probably a candy bar in a protein bar wrapper. Seriously, it was amazing! We both took some ibuprofen, drank the last of our water and then waited for the race to start. Gordon left around 8:30 to give them his drop bag and get ready to start. Our wave didn't start until 9:20, so we had a little bit of time to wait in the tent. We decided to use the bathroom one more time before the race...

Yep that's a long line! And it was freezing outside!! We were so ready to get back inside the tent!!

That's a LONG row of porta potties!!

As soon as wewere "done" we went back in the tent to wait! We started a conversation with the poeple standing by us and talked for a little bit, and then realized we didn't have a picture of us with our mustaches that someone else had taken {since I took the one on the bus}, so they offered to do it for us!

On the bus I had mentioned I wanted to watch the YouTube video "Life is like running a marathon" that we saw in Relief Society a while ago. It suddenly occured to us we hadn't watched it yet, but we were about 15 minutes from starting. But we decided we wanted to watch it, so standing there among the incredibly crowded tentees we shared my set of headphones and watched it on my iPhone. And we both bawled. Seriously this video kills me every time I see it. Just thinking about it gives me goosebumps. Watch it. Click here and it will take you right to it. I did all the work for ya. Just watch it.

So we finish it, and are bawling and wiping our eyes and everyone is walking past us looking at us crazy and getting ready to go out to the starting line. We decided to say a prayer before we went out, and that just opened the flood works even more. I can't tell you how grateful I am for my sister and the example she is in my life. I am so lucky to have her in my life and to have her as my best friend. Seriously, I love my sister. So we are bawling and then walk out to the starting line. Which walking out of the tent with a tear stained face sucked. My face was so cold haha. We put on our headphones, warmed up a little bit and then we started our first half marathon.

The first 4 miles were AH mazing. My breathing was perfect. My muscles were perfect. The music was perfect. We were passing people, and passed the "pacer" of 2:45. I made us stop to walk a few times, but for the most part all was great! Before too long, we saw the pacer for 2:30! The one I wanted to finish with! And we had been running faster than them because we caught up to them... Did that make sense? So we catch up to them around mile 6 and started running right behind them. The pace was PERFECT. I KNEW I could stay with them for the rest of the race. And then I tripped.

We were running on a pathway in Provo Canyon and there were a lot of rocks in the path. We were kinda jumping over them and around them and I went to be all fancy and do a leap thing over them and landed on my ankle wrong. Awesome. I fell, slightly twisted my ankle, and landed with FULL impact on my knees. I said I was ok, the pacers kept going and we stepped to the side for a second. And I was fighting back tears. It hurt, but not all that bad. All I could think about was how I was going to have to stop the race and that was NOT ok. So I was like ok lets walk I can do this and I told Brynne we might have to walk the whole thing but that I was going to finish this race. She said that was totally fine, we were going to finish this together and she knew I can do this. A little ways down the path we started to jog again and I felt ok. My ankle hurt a little but nothing awful. We got to a spot where we were going uphill - very slight uphill but uphill nonetheless. I made us walk, the whole way until we were going downhill again which was probably about a mile. After that, it was walk for a bit, jog for a while. Walk for a bit, jog for a while.

Mentally, I was dying. My body hurt. My calves were on freaking fire. It hurt so bad! I felt so bad that we were walking - Brynne was acting like it was nothing and she could just go forever. She was listening to Turbo Kick rounds and just dancing and smiling and seriously she is just the most in shape person I have ever met. We got to a drinking station and asked what mile we were at and they said 11. 11! 2.1 to go!!!! Brynne was super excited and said we should jog the rest of the way. I knew that wasn't going to happen, as much as I wanted it to. For the next mile, we jogged and would walk for a bit. I was digging deep - trying to tell myself ever mental thing I could, trying to find every last ounce of energy, trying to get mad about something to keep me going and I just was dying. Then we saw the mile 12 sign. When we did walk, we walked fast. And when we jogged, it was really slow. But it was jogging. And then all the sudden we saw people walking, really slowly, with medals. And water bottles. We could see people who were done!!

With about half a mile left, we stopped walking and only jogged. There became a pathway of people - waving and cheering us on. I had my headphones on so I couldn't really hear anyone but they were giving out high 5's and waving. I wish there had been people the whole race - that helped a ton!! And then the best moment happened. I saw my husband.

Brynne could see them, I was still oblivious

I actually saw Blake {Brynne's husband} first. He was standing in the middle of the path with his camera. And I am thinking "dude I am going to fall over if I stop running so you'd better move or I will make you move" and THEN I realized oh hey that's Blake!!

"Look!! There they are!!!"

She was having so much fun waving haha! And I couldn't stop smiling!



And then I started crying haha. Not a lot! But I was tearing up. I did it. I ran a half marathon. And my husband is here to watch me finish!!



Almost done!!!

After we passed them, we had maybe 100 yards left. And we sprinted. She beat me, but not by much. And then we were done. And they handed us a medal and a bottle of water as we crossed the finish line. And I could NOT stop smiling. They had tables of bananas and oranges a little ways away and we opted for bananas, since we didn't think we could peel an orange at the moment haha. I drank that bottle of water SO fast. It was gone in myabe 15 seconds. Probably not the greatest idea - I had a stomach ache the rest of the day and that couldn't have helped. Then, it was time for pictures!!



All done & alive!!

SO proud of those medals!!

Less cheeser picture of our medals. Seriously, we both LOVED that we got medals!

My best friend there to support me. I love my husband, in case you didn't know that already!

Brynne & Blake :)

The Wise's all came to support Brynne!! Aren't they great?? Andra ran the Halloween Half Marathon in 2011 :)

I went to itch my leg and pulled up my pant leg and realized my knees were bloody from falling. Way to go huh?? I am so glad I didn't feel it until the race was over though - if they had been hurting all along that would have sucked!!

You should see them now - kinda got the black and blue bruise thing going on!

After pictures, we went to Blake & Brynne's house to pick up the truck since Jake & Blake had driven over to the race together. We met my mom & Jeannene there, who gave us both huge hugs and then we all left to go to lunch at Noodles & Co. with the Wise's! It was delicious - Jake & I both got the Wisconsin Mac & Cheese, and I got a side of the Tomato Basil soup. After we were done eating, we went to the mall to get the Mazda and then drove home to take an ice bath.

Crossed it off my Crazy Cool list!

Yes I took an ice bath. It sucked. SO bad. But it helped, I know it. My muslces were really hurting - walking up the stairs in our garage to our house about killed me and it was 3 stairs. If we had a 2 story house I might have died. I took a nap afterwards and then we ordered Cafe Rio. OH MY FETCHING YUM. I eat there all the time but I order a fire grilled chicken tostada, double black beans, no rice, shell, cheese, tortilla strips, sour cream or dressing. So chicken, beans and veggies. Healthy, yes. Pretty good, yes. But this time, I ordered a Pork Burrito smothered in the house dressing. And you'd better believe I ate the whole thing.


Walking the next day was a litte tough but not awful. I didn't finish as fast as I had wanted, but I finished. Our time was around 2:38. So I set a PR and I have something to work to beat next time. And next time is June 8th. Brynne & I both already registered for it!! Utah Valley Half Marathon - here we come!! And this time, I am running the WHOLE thing - no stopping AT ALL! But for now, I am proud to say I have completed a half marathon!