done and done.

we did it! me with my running buddies... carly (my friend/roommate, who got me to do this in the first place) and rob (her dad, who is a rockstar)

yesterday was the half marathon! it's hard to believe that it's already done... but i'm glad it is! it was quite the day... let me just tell you about it.

so... friday night we stayed up at carly's house in edwards (about half an hour past copper). carly, her parents, dwen, kellie, and i all stayed up there, had a carb-crazy dinner, and played games. it was fun! i really wasn't that nervous... mostly just anxious. i still had a hard time getting to sleep though.

the next morning carly, rob, carla (carly's mom, who got up early to drive us down there), and i woke up bright and early to eat breakfast and go sign in for the race. i still wasn't feeling nervous, and everything was fine until we were almost to frisco. i started feeling really hot and like i was going to throw up. luckily carla is a mom and felt my head and knew we needed to pull over... we pulled over and i got out of the car and threw up. my purple smoothie got all over my shoes! haha it was gross, but then i was fine :) but seriously... who throws up before the race even starts? apparently i do. i'm blaming it on my cold medicine that i took before i ate.

so anyways... it was really cold and rainy, which was not fun before we started, but once we got going it was actually greatly appreciated. the first 7 miles were golden, then between about 7 and 9 i started feeling like i was ready to be done. that passed, though, and i was good until about 10 and a half, when we had to go up some steep hills. that was when i started feeling a little sick. but then i walked for just a little bit and felt okay. the same thing happened right at the end, too. carly and rob kept running, so i had to run faster to catch up with them, but it was okay :) then we finished and i couldn't even focus on anything except my desire to just lay in the grass... so i did. it wasn't fast or anything (2:36:20) and we were pretty close to the last people (i was 254/281, which is weird because they told us there were like 700 people doing it), but i'm still proud of myself. my goal was just to finish, and that's what i did!

i seriously could never have done it by myself though. i wouldn't have even done it at all, let alone done the training runs, without carly. and i would have walked a lot more if it weren't for carly and rob running with me. and seriously... seeing the cheering crowd EVERYWHERE was awesome! (by that i don't mean a ton of people cheering all along the route... i mean my parents, dwen, carla, and kelly drove along and waited at like 6 different spots for us! and kellie was at the first one before she had to head back for a job interview... that's dedication.) and all of that was in the freezing cold and rain! that was the best feeling ever... and it really did help!

thanks guys :)

so anyways... that's the half marathon story. afterwards we went out to eat and watched the us/england world cup game. it was fun, but i was tired! then later last night i went and sat in dwen's hot tub, which was wonderful until i started feeling like i was being cooked alive.

all in all it was a wonderful day :)

here are some pictures...

about mile 7... still feeling golden. i'm laughing at the crotchpunch sign.

at the very end... total tunnel vision.

haha... that's all i wanted to do.

yay! i can't leave out our other training buddy... kayuh. he went on all our training runs with us!

i love my family! thanks for being there guys :) that's bryan on the sign... gwen made those. you can't really see the one on the bottom but it's a picture of me crotchpunching the race... HA!

praise the Lord for getting me through! and for rain and cool weather, and for my family and friends, and for beautiful mountains!