13.1 Miles - Painter's 1/2 Marathon

Well, we did it! Tami and I successfully ran the Painter's Half Marathon in St. George this past weekend. Tami's brother Brian also ran it with us as well as Tami's cousin. The picture above is a before shot. As you can see, the weather was beautiful. We all left Friday afternoon to St. George and carbo-loaded at Fazoli's. We then headed to Littlefield 30-min south of St. George) to stay at Marva's place (Tami's grandma). We were all feeling pretty good about the race and slept pretty well. We were a little worried on the drive back in Saturday morning though when the thermometer on the car read in the 20s. But we were prepared for cold weather. This really was my first big race and as we all huddled (the three of us and about 1500 other runners) we tried to keep warm. The race kicked off at 9:00 and it was slow going until I was able to weave around all the other runners and find some open space. I had my iPod loaded with music this time. I figured the Ensign recordings could wait for another workout. With gloves, hat, running pants and windbreaker, the cold really didn't bother me. The course weaved through neighborhoods and also along a paved parkway trail that really was nice. Quite a bit of up and down, but nothing extreme. Tami said she was able to see me for the first couple of miles but then lost track of me. I had no idea where Brian was. It's so interesting to watch other runners and what they wear especially. I'll bet there were people out there that were easily wearing $150+ worth of brand-name running clothes. Lots of spandex.

At about mile 5 began to realize I had a long ways to go still. I was feeling good and I don't want to say I ever hit "the wall", but I thought about it. After about mile 8, things started to go pretty quickly and before I knew it, I had hit mile 12. Surprisingly all my joints felt good the entire race. I made an effort to walk through the thirst aid stations rather than run through them. I also made sure to drink at every one. I didn't even get blisters on my feet. I was pretty excited to hit the finish line. In my mind, I couldn't imagine thinking that the finish line was just the half way point of the marathon. One thing at a time though. I ended up finishing at about 1 hr 45 min which is an average of about 8 min. miles. My goal was to finish under 2 hours, so I feel good about that pace. Tami's time was 1 hr 56 min, which is under 9 min miles. She felt good about her time too. And Brian showed us all up by finishing in 1 hr 36 min, but for a guy who has run 10 marathons already, I wasn't surprised. The kids were excited to see us at the finish line too.

The worst part about the whole experience was having to sit in a car for 3 1/2 hours to drive back home, take a 45 min break and then drive 3 1/2 more hours to a cabin in Idaho where we spent the weekend. I'll blog about that soon. Let's just say that I was not able to walk upstairs very well Sat. night. Was doing OK on Sunday and by Sunday afternoon was feeling pretty recovered. Today is Tuesday and I plan on running about 3 miles. Can't stop training now. It's hard to believe in about 2 1/2 weeks I'll be running 15 miles just as a training run. Here's some pictures from the race.



This picture of me was at about mile 8.



This one is about 100 yards from the finish line.