Canyonlands Half Marathon 2010

This past weekend, we headed down to Moab with our good friends, so Jess and I could run the Canyonlands Half Marathon. We left all of our boys at home and made a couples weekend out of it. It was one of the funnest weekends I've had in a LONG time! We got into town Friday night, picked up our packets, and headed to Pasta Jay's to load up on some carbs! I ordered the most delicious thing on the menu, Chicken Pesto Tortellini! It was so delicious I scraped my plate clean! To top it off we ordered pesto cheese bread that was just as yummy! After we were all put into carb induced comas, we headed back to our hotel for a good nights rest. I was a little nervous of how the night would go, mainly because I got zero sleep the night before my first race. Luckily, I didn't have any issues this time and woke up Saturday morning feeling well rested!

Jess and I before the race

Rob and Jonny had to find something to entertain themselves during the race. They went golfing for free at the golf course, off-roading, and even had some moob male bonding time! Here are a couple of pictures from their adventures.

Saturday morning was freezing! Race workers were saying that it was one of the coldest race mornings ever! We got bused up the canyon to the starting line, but had to stand in the freezing cold for another hour and a half! We thought we were going to die from hypothermia! By the time the race started, I couldn't feel my fingers or toes! It was a weird sensation to run on feet that you didn't have any feeling in. Jess and I had made a goal to try and finish the race in 2:25-2:30. We knew we had to run around an eleven minute mile to finish in that time frame. We were very optimistic that we could do. Once we crossed the starting line we took off! We finished our first mile in 9:40! After that we slowed down just a little bit, but averaged about a ten minute mile up until mile 8. Jess and I had completely different races. Jess was struggling with a painful knee from mile 3 -8, while I was feeling good up until mile 10. When Jess got into her groove right after we hit 8, I was starting to go downhill. At mile 9 there was a horrible hill. I thought it was going to be the end of me, but luckily we made it to the top and it was downhill from there to the end of the canyon.

Once we came out of the canyon we only had about 2.5 miles to go. This is where I lost it! I had a major physical and emotional break down. My legs were so tired and wanted to give up completely! The sun was beating down on us and I thought I was going to puke. I had to stop and walk for a few seconds to regain my energy. Luckily, Jess was there to encourage me to keep going and finish. I honestly don't know what I would have done without her! Even though I got a little testy with her a couple of times towards the end, she stuck with me and continued to push me. We stopped at the last water station at mile 12 to re-hydrate. We looked at the time and knew that if we kept pushing forward we would beat our goal. Slowly but surely we crept towards the finish line. With less than a half mile left to go, the finish line was in view! Jess offered me her hand and we bolted to the finish line! Our husbands were there to cheer us on and I couldn't have been happier! We finished in 2:21:55! A whole 33 minutes faster than our previous race!

Approaching the finish line

Rob and I

Jess and I - SO happy to be done!

Finishing that race in the time we did really proved to me that I can do anything I set my mind to! Jess and I had some really rough training runs. 3 out of our 4 longest runs took place in blizzards. Our training times were so slow because the snow kept slowing us down. We had no idea if we were going to make our goal time because we never had any good training runs. We were so happy with the out come of the race. Special thanks to Jess for sticking with me and pushing me to the finish line! I owe you big time! Up next on our race list...hopefully the Salt Lake Half in less than 4 weeks! I'm not sure if I am crazy enough to run two races so close together. The torturous memories will be so fresh, I don't know if I could handle it :)

The rest of the weekend was so relaxing! We just hung out, ate food, and laughed! Mainly at our dorky husbands! They had some hilarious stories to tell of their crazy adventures. Sunday morning we all slept in and then headed into Moab one last time to grab a bite to eat and hit up Arches National Park. This was my first time to Arches and I've lived in Utah all my life. It was absolutely beautiful! We decided to hike up to Delicate Arch before hitting the road. I don't know if that was the smartest thing to do since Jess and I were sore from the race, but I think it was worth the pain!

Balancing Rock

Delicate Arch

The husband and I

Jonny and Jess

Petroglyphs

It was a great way to end the weekend! Thanks again to Jess and Jonny for making the trip so memorable! Rob and I had a blast!