1. My awesome cousin Sarah and I woke up crazy early in the morning around 3:30 AM, to meet at the finish line of the race to be shuttled up to the starting line, which was at Tibble Fork park up American Fork Canyon.
2. In our little goody bag that they gave us when we picked up our packets the day before, they included a pair of gloves and an emergency blanket. I thought, "Wow, those are weird things to include in a goody bag for a race," and promptly took them out and left them in my room. I can't tell you how much I regretted that! Waiting up at the starting line for like 2 hours in the frigid mountain air was awful! Luckily after a while, someone went around passing out more emergency blankets to the dummies who took theirs out of their goody bag, and I got warmed up a bit.
3. Everyone was wrapped up in their shiny, silver emergency blankets, which made everyone look like giant baked potatoes.
4. When the race finally started at 6AM, the sun was coming up over the mountains. The first 8 miles of the race was down AF canyon, and it was cool and shady. It was beautiful!
5. I'm SO grateful that they had little sample packets of energy jelly beans at the water stations. I had one pack of energy chews, and went through them really quickly. I didn't realize how much I'd need!
6. Since it was the Race Against Cancer, they had a bunch of signs along the way with quotes from people who had either survived cancer, or from people whose loved ones had lost the battle with cancer. It was uplifting and encouraging to read about people's experiences along the way. A lot of people had shirts or temporary tattoos with the names of people they were honoring in their run. I was running in honor of my aunt Laurie, who died of colon cancer.
7. Sarah and I stopped at one of the restrooms at like mile 5 or something like that. There was a long line, and a lot of people that we had worked hard to pass on the way ended up running past us again. So as soon as we were done with the bathrooms, we pushed ourselves to pass all those people again. There was one lady in a black and white skirt and purple shirt that we kept leap-frogging with for the rest of the race. We'd pass her, then she'd pass us, then we'd pass her... I'm pretty sure in the end, we finished before her!
8. The first 8 miles were all downhill, and not only did that make it a heck of a lot easier, it helped our time, too. At mile 9, I really started feeling the effects of running for so long, especially since it got hillier when we got out of the canyon. I'm super impressed with us, though, because we still ran all the hills, except one. There was one hill between miles 11 and 12 that might as well have been Mount Everest. I had to walk that one. Sarah still jogged circles around me while I walked it, but that's okay.
9. Around mile 10, we saw my cousin Anne bicycling in her neighborhood. That was a fun coincidence. She turned around and rode next to us for a minute. It was encouraging to see another familiar face.
10. Around mile 11, I really started to regret not bringing pain killers with me. OUCH.
11. Somewhere around mile 11, we met up with the people running the 5K. I saw a few people that I worked with. I knew we were close to the end, but meeting up with them gave me a boost of energy.
12. At mile 13, when we only had 0.1 mile left, we had enough energy to "sprint" to the finish line (my sprint is more like a jog, but it was the best I could do!).
13. Nearing the finish line, I started seeing family and friends cheering me on. My friend Walker and his mom, my aunt and uncle Stephen and Nancy, my cousin Linda and her daughter, and Robyn and my dad. My dad was right at the end taking pictures of me, and Robyn was of course there being totally prepared to help me and Sarah out with water and stuff for the end of the race. I'm just now realizing that I didn't get any pictures of me and my dad! Dang it. But he was there, just on the other side of the camera
14. I got really emotional at the end. It had been a LOT of hours of training. More than physically hard, it had been mentally hard to push myself for months to work up to the 13 miles. There were days that I would cry after my run because it was so difficult. It was also extremely rewarding. I'd never pushed myself so hard for so long before. And it wasn't just me; other people were there for me, pushing me along the way, and running right next to me! It was a little overwhelming. So there at the finish line, Robyn gave me a hug and didn't let go for a long time.
15. It took a LONG time after we stopped running for me to catch my breath. Not only that, I was in a ton of pain. So I took some Tylenol that someone had brought for me and walked around for a little while.
16. THEY HAD FREE MASSAGES!!!!! It was TOTALLY worth running 13 miles for a free massage. I'm not even being sarcastic. I love massages.
Anyhoo, there you go. Those are the highlights of the day. I would have added the free Kneader's french toast breakfast that they had at the end as a highlight, but I can't have bread, so I didn't get to enjoy that! I did cheat and have a popsicle, though. Not quite the Kneader's breakfast, but it was still a treat.
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