My friend, Tabitha, thought it would be fun to put together a group from our ward to run this race. There ended up being 9 of us. Our team name was C.O.W.s on the move. C.O.W.s = Copper Oaks Ward. We started training 3 months prior. Come race day, I felt ready and prepared. The day before the race I tried to make it a chill day as much as possible so I wouldn't feel stressed when I ran. I didn't clean, (my house looks like a bomb went off), the only scheduled appointments I had was to go pick up my race bag, get my nails done, and goto a dinner later that night.
Before I left for the dinner, I thoughtfully went through all of my running gear, got it all put together, made sure I had everything, and got it all ready to go. All I would have to do in the morning was get dressed, eat, and go.
Before I went to bed, I set my phone alarm for 3:30 a.m. (as we were to leave at 4:15 a.m.), added some more music to my playlist and did a little reading on my phone. I got tired and eventually put my phone down on my night stand and forgot to plug it in to charge it. (seriously. how could I have done that?!) At 1:40 a.m. my phone beeped because the battery was about to die. LUCKILY, I heard it and woke up. I plugged it in and tried to go back to sleep. It took me a while.
All of the sudden I hear a faint "Kanani". Was I dreaming? Then I hear Kurt say, "Good Morning." The second I heard his voice I knew that I slept through my alarm. I flew out of bed and said, "Oh Crap! Why didn't my alarm go off?!" (I'm pretty sure I might have added some colorful adjectives in there.) I looked at Kurt's alarm clock. It said 4:39. I checked my phone. Dead. It was DEAD! What the freak!!! I plugged it in at 1:40 a.m. The faint "Kanani" I heard was 2 of my running buddies (that I was supposed to pick up at 4:15) outside my window calling my name hoping I would hear them. They couldn't call me as my phone was dead, so one of them called Kurt's phone and that was the "Good Morning" that I heard.
I was freaking out because 1. this was not my game plan. 2. I was worried that I was going to make the 6 people that I was supposed to pick up miss the bus up the canyon. We had to be there by 5:45 to catch the last bus. I was ready and out the door in about 10 mins. I was so pissed. It totally threw me off.
We did end up being on time. In fact it was kind of a blessing because we would have gotten there way earlier and we would have ended up sitting around freezing at the start line for and extra 30+ minutes.
It was super cold up in the canyon. Really cold. There was no frost on the ground, but you could see your breath. When we left the car it was 55 degrees. It was probably 10 degrees colder in the canyon. It was nice of them to give us gloves and mylar blankets in our race bags. The first thing we did when we got to the top was head for the porta potties. We walked to the end of them and I ended up scoring one that hadn't been used yet!
The energy where everyone was waiting at the start was amazing. I loved the atmosphere and seeing all these people. It was a wave of silver as everyone was wrapped up in their mylar blankets.
Finally it was go time! I was nervous, but my nervousness turned into excitedness. The horn sounded and everyone took off. A few minutes into the race I had to laugh because I took a second to take it all in. And I just found it funny that people (and a lot of them) paid money to freeze their buns off and run. And I was now one of them.
I took the advice of starting out slow, which paid off. At mile 2 I started to get the feeling back in my toes from being frozen and I was feeling good. It was then that I picked up my pace and started passing people. I could feel my toes hitting my shoes. Not good. I knew that it wouldn't be pretty when I took off my shoes as I had already lost one toe nail and another one was black and blue from my training. At mile 5 I turned on my tunes. At mile 6 I got a really I got a really bad side ache. I've never gotten a side ache while running. I had to move over to the side of the road and stop for a minute. At mile 7 I started to feel the downhill terrain pulling on my lower calf muscles. At mile 10 coming out of the canyon I was thrashed. I was somewhat disappointed in myself as my pace slowed down to what seemed like a mere brisk walk. I had to move to the side of the road and walk 3 times. I just didn't have much left in me. I started to justify my slowness by telling myself that "I am old. I can walk if I want." Ha, ha. Just when I was ready to give up, I saw my friend, Allison running ahead of me. I ran faster to catch her. And I did. I said hi, and it was fun to see her, and see ya later as I couldn't keep pace with her.
Finally. The finish line. Although it felt like I was brisk walking across the line, I DID IT! Finished my first 1/2 marathon. My two running buddies who didn't run this race came to cheer us on at the finish line.
My time wasn't that bad for my first race. Even though I walked some, I ran a good pace the previous 10 miles and still made good time. My goal was to run it under 2 hours.
I'm pretty sure that I'm going to lose my 2 toenails.
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