Celebrating 11 YEARS

Our goal this year was to run a 1/2 Marathon together.  When I got on to websites at the beginning of the year listing the 1/2 Marathons in the valley I found the perfect one because it fell right on our anniversary!  Perfect!!  It is something I will always cherish.  It was fun, it was hard.  We did something hard together and it was AWESOME!!

We dropped off the kids at our good friends house, Kate and Andy the night before at 9 PM.  We laid our kids down in their sleeping bags.  And said goodbye.  I feel so lucky to have such great sleeping kids!  They all snuggled in next to each other and fell asleep. 

David and I got 4 hours of sleep that night.  We were up at 3 AM.  We left home at 4 to drive up to American Fork High School (40 mins away). 

Still dark, ready to get on the bus! 

The race started at 6 AM.  The drive up the canyon felt forever long!  And we knew we had to run back to where we started!  When we got off the bus we found one of many lines to the porta potties.  This was my first time experiencing a flushable porta potty!  I didn’t know they existed.  They still smelt the same though!!

This particular race was for such a great cause.  100% of the registration fees for all runners goes towards people with cancer to help pay for their bills.  They raised at least $50,000 from just racers.  Before the raise they had a lady that was telling her cancer story.  She did not look much older than me.  She told of her fight with cancer that started as Breast Cancer and then it had spread to her bones.  I cannot imagine!!  And she had 3 young children.  It was really touching. 

The first 7 miles were completely down hill and that is where the canyon ended.  Then we ran on a path around the golf course and then the last 3 miles were on the road.  I absolutely LOVED the course!  They had signs along the way that talked about facts of cancer, people who were battling it, etc.

We ran the race together the whole way.  We even gave one of the camera men a picture of us kissing at mile 10!  HAHA!!  We went through the finish line holding hands.  It felt great to finish together!  We ran the race in 1:51:05.  Our goal was to run it under 2:00 hours.  And we did it!

We kept commenting that this is the first time in our marriage where we could accomplish this.  We have had our ups and downs with physical activity and to be able to run this race with out stopping showed us how far we have come!  This was especially huge for David.  He is not a runner.  Or claims he wasn’t.  He has earned that badge now!  I don’t think running 1/2 marathons will become a regular thing for him.  He likes his CrossFit training too much

After the race we enjoyed the free food that Kneader’s Bakery brought us.  French toast, fruit and a delicious lemon slushy.  It felt good to sit down and eat!

This boy was sitting at the table when we sat down.  He was amazing!  He is 11 years old and he told his mom his goal was to run a 1/2 marathon before he was 12 years old.  He trained by running 4- 8 miles every day.  He finished the race in 1:39!!  He was so motivated and dedicated.  He hadn’t yet found his family until after he finished eating his breakfast.

A print off our race times.  Here is our official Results;  David had an average pace of 8:34.  He was 25th Male in his age division (30-34) and 301 out of 1166 runners!  I had the same average pace and was the 46th Female in my age division (30-34)  I was 300 out of 1166 runners.

We got back to our friends’ house at 9:30 to pick up the kids.  It was nice to hear that the kids were great and took care of themselves.  It is always nice to know your kids are well behaved while you are gone.  Makes it so much more enjoyable!

I had a babysitter lined up for 2 pm so we could go out.  We were extremely sore (and still are walking funny!)

I set up the anniversary activities this year.  We went and got a couples massage.  I knew we would need that after the race.  Then we went to one of our favorite restaurants, Tsunami.  We LOVE good sushi!  We then went to a play at the Desert Star Theatre.  I went with some friends last year but David has never been.  I have been wanting to take him because it is such a fun place!  They do spoofs off of the Mormon culture and Utah.  This play was entitled “The Addams Family Home Evening”  They involve the audience and it is just a really fun place to go to get some great, clean entertainment.  And it is a lot more interactive than a movie.

We are excited to see what year 11 has in store for us and our family!  We are so blessed!!