March 8th - today was the day!! Several of my family members, at the invitation of my brother Boyce, decided to run the Canyonlands Half-Marathon in Moab, UT. I had wanted to participate in this event but our family had some scheduling conflicts which prevented me from registering. So I decided that I would train and run a half-marathon at home while they ran in Utah. The one advantage was that I had some nice weather for the run. I set off on my run after Camille had taken Tanner and Trevor to Primary Activity Day. Camille decided that she wanted some photographic evidence of me running so I told her my route and she drove off and took some pictures of me.
At about the 9 mile mark, Camille again drove by after picking up Tanner and Trevor. They waved and shouted encouragement so it was almost like being at a race with some fans cheering you along. Mile 11 was probably the toughest stretch but I wasn't about to quit then. I struggled through to the end and completed all 13.1 miles in 1 hour and 53 minutes. My goal was 1 hour and 50 minutes so I was fairly pleased with my results considering it was my first half-marathon.
About a month ago, Camille purchased for me a Garmin Forerunner which allows me to run outdoors and keep track of my time, distance, heartrate, etc. Prior to that, I had primarily trained indoors using a treadmill so I could gage my pace and distance better. The picture here shows the Garmin with my results from the run.
The more I run, the more I am contemplating running a full marathon in the near future. Training takes up a lot of time but I enjoy the athletic nature of it and the fact that you are competing against yourself as well as others. You aren't relying on other team members who may be more or less committed than you are. There are many times that require you to dig deep and only you know whether you have given your all. I love the quote by Steve Prefontaine - "A lot of people run a race to see who's the fastest. I run to see who has the most guts." I look forward to the next running event - not sure yet what it will be but I'm sure it will be fun!!
