Utah Valley Half Marathon

This race was so close to not happening for me. Again. But my prayers were answered and I was able to go!

I know it's kind of a silly thing to pray for, but this was something important to me. I prayed that I would feel better so that I could go to the race and be able to enjoy it, or that I would be able to handle it if I had to pull out. I went to bed at 8:30, and texted Katie, "I have a bit of a fever. If it's not gone tomorrow, I won't be able to run :(." She said, "What! Get better now!" I told her I was trying my hardest to.

But I could not fall asleep. I was feeling hot and cold and my nose was totally stuffed up. Pete came in at around 10 and said I felt really hot, and I felt pretty terrible. I figured there was no way I would be better by 2:00 when I needed to get up. I started feeling really bad about not going because I was planning on brining some GU and a watch for Katie. I knew she wouldn't have as good as an experience if she didn't have enough nutrition, and they were only going to have GU at one of the aid stations. I also just wanted to be there with her since I got her into the whole thing, and I hated the thought of her not having anyone to cheer for her at the finish line!

I had 4 hours left to sleep and I just felt like I was getting worse. I talked to Pete for little while and just felt like crying. He was worried about me and told me not to go if I was still feeling sick. I just felt so sad about having to miss out on this race again. It was frustrating that I thought it would be off because of my foot, but then it got better so it was back on and now it looked like it was back off again. So frustrating! Pete told me we'd sign me up for Rock Cliff tri instead. It's in 2 weeks, and I had wanted to do it, but it was too close to all my other races. Taking this half marathon out would change things. I was ok with this (I mean, one more tri would be awesome right?) and just resigned myself to missing it, but I still wasn't happy.

I think at around midnight I started to feel better and was able to sleep a tiny bit. I dreamt that I woke up at 3:00 instead of 2:00 and didn't know what to do because I was supposed to meet Katie at 3:30 an hour away. Luckily, when I woke up, it was not quite 2:00 and I made myself stay in bed until my alarm went off.

Then I was up! I felt so much better! I took my temperature with 3 different thermometers to make sure my fever really was really gone, and it was! I got dressed, fed George, grabbed my stuff and headed out. It was weird that I wasn't really tired at all considering I had hardly slept, and I didn't really feel sick anymore either. How is that even possible? Then I was driving down the almost deserted I-15, listening to techno and getting really excited!

I met Katie and we got on a bus which proceeded to take the scenic route to the race start. It was kind of frustrating that they had us get there so early because we ended up standing around in the cold for an hour and a half before the race started. At least they had fires going so we were able to stay pretty warm.

While we were standing by the fire, my friend from high school, Shannon, who I hadn't seen in forever, suddenly appeared! It was so great to see her and hang out with her while we waited for the start. I didn't even know she was going to be there so I'm glad she spotted me! When the race started, she took off way ahead of us and finished in like 1:37! Great job, Shannon!

I got a twitter message from Sam that said, "good luck colleen! I'm pacing 3:40 for the full ... do NOT let me pass you!" I was like, "You better not!" Of course, I would have to go really slow for him to pass me, but it was kind of funny and something to think about.

There were a couple of really good downhills towards the beginning, and it was really fun! I felt great and was just flying. I had my Garmin hooked onto my belt so it wasn't very easy to look at, but whenever I did look at it, I was surprised how fast I was going. Even when I felt like I was slowing down it would be like 9:15 and I would just smile because I felt like I could keep that pace up forever. My ipod died after about 3 miles, but I was fine with that because I hadn't really planned on using it anyway. It was nice to just enjoy the pretty scenery and the other runners, even though most of them had headphones in.

Ah, how deceiving downhills are, though. Once it flattened out, I really started to hurt and slowed way down. Guess I couldn't keep that pace up forever...

1. 9:53
2. 8:56
3. 9:35
4. 9:22
5. 8:55
6. 9:18
7. 9:31
8. 9:37
9. 10:04
10. 10:30
11. 12:20 (bathroom break)
12. 10:44
13. 11:13
14. 9:39 (0.23 mi)

I made it all the way to mile 10 before I stopped at a port-a-potty which was really good for me! Maybe I'll start having chicken noodles soup the night before races from now on! I probably didn't really need to stop here either, but my knee and hip were hurting pretty badly and for some reason I thought it would be nice to take a little break so I could feel refreshed. I don't know if it even helped. It felt like IT band pain which I think was from not running or stretching for 2 weeks before this. Lesson learned.

When I came out of the port-a-potty I heard a guy call my name and I immediately thought of Sam and was like, "No!" But it wasn't. It was another guy, Zach, who I also know from twitter. He was running with his wife and they were so cute in their matching shirts. It was her first half marathon so I was happy to see them doing well. He told me I was "smokin' it!" and said, 'You weren't planning on 9:30/miles were you?"

I told him, "No, especially since I had a fever last night!" This made me feel good and I pulled ahead of them for a little while. But then, I stopped to try and stretch my hip (which didn't really help), and they passed me. I wasn't able to catch back up.

I started to get worried about George being hungry when I had 2-3 miles left so I tried calling Pete, but he didn't answer. I tried not to worry about it because there was nothing I could do other than try to hurry so that's what I did, but it was hard. When I saw Pete and the kids near the finish line, though, George was just as happy as can be! It was so great to see them cheering for me, and I sprinted into the finish!

I finished in 2:12 exactly, and according to my Garmin, I actually ran 13.23 miles. I was shooting for 2:10 so I was really close!

It turned out that George was just the perfect angle (was there ever really any doubt?). He didn't drink the bottle they made for him, but he was still just fine. After walking around and getting some food and drinks, I tried to nurse him, but he wasn't even interested in drinking! I don't know if it was because there was so much going on or what, but he was just nice and calm. We put him in his stroller and he just went to sleep while we waited for Katie to come in. What a good little baby! I ended up not even needing to feed him until we were heading home at like 11:00!

Katie finished 20 minutes faster than her last half marathon so she was happy with her time. It's kind of funny that we were both 2 minutes over what we were shooting for, which isn't bad.

Here's my little cheering squad. They liked this statue.

We went to breakfast at Kneeders afterwards before heading home. Then, when we got home, I started feeling really sick again and my temperature got back up to 101.2 degrees. Dang it! I really had thought I was better because I felt so good before and during the race! I spent the rest of the day icing my really sore knee and laying in bed feeling crappy. Pete is taking good care of me, and George took a nice 3 hour nap so I got a little sleep too. I'm trying to rest up and keep drinking a lot. Hopefully I'll be better for real tomorrow.

I think this is a case of "Be careful what you pray for" because maybe it would have been better for me to still have the fever when it was time to go so that I would have stayed in bed instead of running. But, even though it probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, I'm glad I went. It was so much fun, and beautiful! It was also really fun to see Shannon and I'm glad I could be there for Katie.