AND WE'RE OFF TO THE RACES!

Well it has taken two weeks to get around to this but I supposed I should right a bit about Joe and my big accomplishment a couple of weeks ago. We ran and finished the St. George Marathon! Yep all 26.2 grueling miles. This was Joe's 9th full marathon and his 4th St. George Marathon. Considering I started out this year undergoing surgery on my left knee, and I really didn't get to start training until the end of March, I feel pretty good about it.

After the race!

Now I have to say, I didn't finish in the time that I wished I had, I was really hoping for a 4:30 finish. Unfortunately, I didn't finish until 5 hours! Yikes! Joe was nice enough to run the first 10 miles with me and then he got too impatient with my slow running, so he took off on his own. He finished just after 4 hours. I feel bad because he most likely would have finished 20 minutes earlier if he hadn't ran with me for so long. He did run back a mile and a half and then ran the last mile and a half with me. (It was good because I was starting to feel the onset of heat exaustion.) He was sure to let me know that his marathon was actually 29 miles!

Before the race...it was cold!

I have been running half marathons in less than two hours lately, however I quickly learned that the second half of the marathon is MUCH different that the first! I really started feeling some intense pain in my hips at about mile 16 and that is when I decided I didn't care about my time anymore, I just wanted to finish. So I stopped every couple of miles and stretched out my hip muscles for a few minutes, it helped me keep going. I am hoping that in my training this next year I will do what I need to in order to strengthen those muscles so I won't have that problem again. . . Did I just say next year? Yes, I have signed up for it again. The trap that novice runners like me fall into is that you run one race, and then you want to see how you much you can improve in the next race. At least now I know what to prepare for, I was kind of running blind. Even though Joe and I have been training a lot and running up to 20 miles, I have never run that far before and I wasn't sure how my body would handle it. Now I know, PAIN!

We went to St. George on the Wednesday before the race and rented a big house with all of the Ballstaedts, it was quite a bit of fun and I really enjoyed spending time chatting with my nieces and nephews and their families. Kamryn was especially delighted to have so many little girls to play with all day. It also didn't hurt that she got to swim pretty much all day, every day. The only down side was the stomach flu spread through the house like wild fire! I was hoping that I had escaped it but low and behold yesterday morning I woke up with it! I am just grateful I didn't get it the day of the race, that would have been horrible!

Anyway, I am very grateful for the marathon experience. People always ask me, "why would you EVER want to run a marathon?" My answer, "because I like to to prove to myself that I can do hard things." There is something very satisfying in knowing that you have disciplined yourself enough to do something that only 2% of the population has done. I know that if I can run a marathon, I can do pretty much anything I set my mind to.

This is Kamryn's "starfish" impression.

This is almost everyone who stayed at the house together.