On May 29th, my sister and I volunteered at the inaugural State Capital Half Marathon. I have to admit that our motivation was to get a free entry into the Utah Valley Halloween Half Marathon. This race looked like an interesting and challenging race including some trail portions, but I wasn't sure if my ankle was up to running 13.1 miles yet, or if I had the endurance for this race.
I was happy to see Rachel Moody at the start (and a bit amazed). She ran the Salt Lake Half Marathon, Ogden Half Marathon and this marathon in the last 6 weeks. Normally that would just be a bit insane, but since she is expecting a baby in mid-June – it qualified as totally insane, awfully awesome, and amazing.
Our aid station was behind Hogle Zoo on a long uphill. We had a little time to get ready and I decided that runners on the uphill stretch would need all the motivation they could get and hooked my iPhone up to the Jeep stereo and cranked up my 'marathon tunes' playlist. I know that when I have been struggling in races, it has been a boost to have someone out there playing music for me. The Jeep also served double duty as the water stop because the aid station was located on the wrong side of the road and the flat bumpers on the Jeep provided a great storage place for extra cups of water.
After providing all the runners with Heed or water, we headed over to the State Capital to see the finish for a little bit. Our timing was perfect, because I was able to see Rachel cross the finish line right as we got there. We hung around for a few minutes and then took Rachel back to the starting line where her car was parked. It was good to have a chance to visit with her.
Later….
After returning home from the race, I changed into my running gear and drove over to Draper to run the Draper trail system. I started out on the Porter Rockwell Trail and came back on the Draper Canal Trail. I was able to run the first 10 miles with no problems and then alternated running/walking the next two miles as a cooldown. I probably could have run the race that morning, but this way I saved an entry fee and was able to assist the race community.
1 comment:
Holy cool! Good job to Rachel for running that. My knees are so blown out from my racing last summer that I wouldn't dare risk it. It's always fun to see pregnant runners, but that is above and beyond!
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