Ogden Half-Marathon

...a month ago I ran my 2nd half, last Saturday I woke up way too early to conquer my third! I am freaking crazy, what was I thinking? I pretty much took a week or so break after the last one and picked-up on the training according to the time I had left before the next. The training was okay, I didn't hurt so bad after the long runs and I felt ready, but a little nervous...perhaps because I had to work the night shift after running 13.1 miles,worrying about maintaining my progress, waking up with a tummy ache (Brick Oven was not being very kind to me)...Who knows, but I went into this one with the same goal: run the whole thing and finish, new PR would be a bonus :)

I started off pretty good, there is a little hill you climb before turning down the canyon, but I should have known it would be a bad omen that I had to hit the port-a-potty at about 2.5 miles...the wet wipes in my waist pack came in very handy and I felt I had averted disaster...

I cruised down the hill at a pace I felt good about, my tummy still was not settled, I have to verbalize my apologies to any runners that may have run into my post-Brick Oven belches (truly very sorry.) It was at about mile 10 that another row of port-a-johns came into view like the Emerald City......I bee-lined it for an empty 'stall' and well...let's just say the visit was not brief, I wanted to die inside that blasted thing and nearly called Scott to come get me. But alas, I was able to emerge and keep running, I crossed the finish line with gusto and two steps later, tripped and landed on the ground with volunteers rushing to help me and a large crowd gawking. At this point I wanted to crawl into a hole and die, but I had to get up, telling the lady at my side that I was glad I at least made it! I was done, grabbed my medal, a sample-sized Smoothie King and went home to take an ice bath so I could handle being on my feet for 12 1/2 hours that night.

It is a pretty course and I am sure would have been reflected in a more positive light had the circumstances been more favorable for me ;)

I did run the whole course, but I am sad that I will never know how fast I "actually" ran the course, not my CHIP time of: 2:33:06--I figure I could easily knock ~25 minutes off my chip time, note-to-self, buy a watch!