St. George Marathon

Last week I ran the St. George Marathon. What a day. I can say now that I'm glad I did it and I'm glad it's over. This was my 5th marathon but the 1st one I've done since have kids. Plus I turned 30 this year and both of those factors made it the most difficult one I've done so far. But I did it and I'm happy about that!

Back in April a group of us signed up to run it together - dad, Caleb, Steph, Garrett and me. Slowly, for one reason or another, everyone dropped out but me. So for the first time doing a marathon, I trained by myself - which ended up being much more difficult than I imagined. I ended up doing most of my training runs during the week at the gym on the treadmill - ugh. But it worked out best for me because I have an hour and a half each day to leave my kids at the daycare and was able to run, so that's what I did. Saturday runs ended up being my favorite since I was actually able to run outside in the cool mornings. Two months of running mostly on the treadmill went by and I started to feel like I would be able to do it. By the time the marathon came around, I felt really good about my running times and was hoping to finish under 4 hours.

This is a picture bright and early Saturday morning right before I loaded onto the bus. I caught one of the first buses around 4:15 and got up to the start line around 5:00. (Thanks to Josh for getting up so early with me and dropping me off!)

The race didn't start until 6:45 so I had about an hour and a half to prep before the race. It was actually a really great time to just relax, stretch and enjoy the marathon atmosphere. They always have about 50 bonfires going and probably at least 150 port a potties lined up. And people everywhere getting excited to run! While I was sitting the music was loud and motivating and the announcer came on a few times and told us some of the marathon stats. I jotted them down so I could remember them:

This year was the 35th annual St. George Marathon

65 degrees at the starting line (and ended up at almost 90 degrees by the time I finished!)

It's the 13th largest marathon in the nation

The first year of the St. George Marathon was 1977 and 57 people registered to run. 38 of those 57 finished the race

This year 7200 runners ran

During this year's race the 100,000th runner will cross the finish line (she crossed just a few minutes after I finished)

57% male runners, 43 % female runners

80% will finish the race

48 of the 50 states had runners in the St. George Marathon - Vermont and Delaware did not

28 runners were 14 years old or younger

1 man 80 years old ran this year

1 lady from St. George has run all 35 years

They went through 4250 gallons of water, 2000 gallons of gatorade and 155,000 cups

I thought those were kind of fun stats to remember. Anyway, a lady that was sitting next to me around the fire took this picture of me just before the race. It's a really fun atmosphere and I loved having time to just hang out with all the runners.

The race went well. I didn't finish under 4 hours like I had hoped, but I felt good for finishing. I had a little bit of a stomach ache during the race and wasn't able to drink any gatorade or eat any the goo that I packed along. I didn't have quite as much energy as I had hoped and hit the wall about mile 18. Like I said - my first race since having kids and turning 30 really did me in this year! But I finished at 4:36 and am happy about that time. Most of all, I feel like it's an accomplishment and I'm proud of that. Josh has been so great being patient with all my crazy Saturday runs and taking over during these three months of training.

I don't have any pictures of me at the finish line because Josh had a crazy time with all 3 kids and we missed each other when I crossed the finish line. Rhen was freaking out and Liev was hungry and Josh was trying to take care of all of it while also watching for me. Anyway, we missed each other while I was running but found each other afterward. I am going to buy some of the pictures the marathon people took but haven't done it yet. I will post them as soon as I get them. Anyway, that's that. Marathon done!