James' 1/2 Marathon

Clark and I ran the Ogden 1/2 Marathon on May 18th. I made a goal to run a 1/2 after each kid I have, so this was James' Half!

It was pouring rain, and Clark begged me to let him take me to breakfast instead of running it...but...I'm a little stubborn, and when I get my heart set on something, I don't give in easily. So we ran.

It was raining so hard that my ear-buds got so wet they stopped working, so I ran most of it in silence. 

When I finished, Clark was waiting at the finish line, shivering uncontrollably. The minute I stopped running my teeth started chattering. Clark's phone had died, so we couldn't call our friends who were going to pick us up. So we walked 2 more miles to their house, in the rain, in our wet running clothes. We were SOOOOOOO cold by the time we got there. 

We stayed at Grandma Alice Wyatt's house the night before and she woke up at 4:45 am to make us breakfast. We went to her house to shower after, and she took us to lunch as well. It was fun to see her and spend a little time with her.

I just love the Ogden course. It is beautiful, and after the first 3 miles, is a gradual downwards slope. It is also the race that I ran on the day that Clark's purposed to me. So it holds a special place in my heart!

Here are a couple things I want to remember about training this go-round:

I trained better than I ever have for a Half. That being said...the longest distance I did was 8 miles, and I only did that once. I did 7 miles a couple of times, and 6 miles several times. 

I ran very consistently at least 4 times a week for three months. I usually ran 3-4-4-5, something like that. I would run my three mile runs at speed 6 on my treadmill (a 10 minute mile), when I ran my 5,6,7,8 mile runs I ran it at speed 5.5 (closer to 11-miute-mile). 

Because of my kids, I did all my training on the treadmill (I think I only did two outdoor runs.) I think this made the race harder because my joints weren't used to the pounding of cement. 

My time was 2 hours 13 minutes. My PR for a half is 1 hour 58 minutes. I really wanted to PR on this one, but I was 15 minutes too slow! 

I won't disclose Clark's time or training on here, because he is a competitive soul, and he didn't PR, so he wants nothing to do with his time:) But needless to say, he did great, especially for the amount of training he put into it. 

Pre-race and already wet.

Post-race and post-shower!