Yesterday, I ran the Jordan River half marathon, and it was perhaps the hardest one for me to do. The trail run itself was very mild. At about mile 4 (and then equivalently at about mile 8 or 9) there was a big hill. But the rest of the run was very flat, and the hills were small and rolling.
It was an "out-and-back" run along the Jordan River, and the weather was perfect. Cool, with maybe a little bit too much wind. I slept really badly the night before, due to some unfortunate incidents, and I think it really showed at the end of the race. At the beginning, for the first 3 miles, I had energy and I adopted and drew from the excitement of all the racers. I got into a comfortable rhythm miles 4 through 7, picked up my pace until mile 9, when it started to get hard, and I still had 4 miles left.
The last 3 are always the hardest. My left hip was seizing up and my knees were starting to hurt. I stopped for water at mile 11 and stretched my calves for half a minute before going. But I ran the whole thing; I didn't walk any of it! I was so tempted to at the end. But there's nothing better than trying and working so hard, and then rounding the bend and seeing the finish line. I got chills at that moment.
I ended up finishing 87 out of 185 (haha, I'm not fast). My average mile was 10:30 minutes, and my overall time was 2 hours 15 minutes and 37 seconds -- which shaves 3 minutes from my best time!!
And this is the only picture I took:
Blurry picture of the sunrise. It was beautiful.
It was hard. But I did it. And training for it was actually a lot of fun. I didn't feel as prepared for it as I would've liked. And I don't honestly know if I'll do any more. It was hard on my body this time; I think I'm getting old. 😂😅
This one was for Sawyer.
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