Well, I started out the day fresh as a daisy running the Utah Valley Marathon with Cath and Smooth, and Rach. We kept a good 9 m/m pace.The running conditions were perfect--it was cool with cloud cover and I was feeling pretty ok. But the premature oranges at mile 10 and a few other pre race mistakes were making me suffer by the half point and I forced Cath to go on without me. Plus my hamstrings have been killing me slowly and I'm seriously losing range of motion. It stopped being any fun by mile 17. From then on out, It was going to be a long series of POP stops. At mile 22 at the mouth of the canyon my daughter was supposed to be on the aid station with the rest of the Timp XC team, but she could not be found. At which point I freaked out, quit running went home (which was .4 miles off mile 23). There is more to the story that I wont' blog about. Anyway, I learned she was at the finish line. I thought I'd catch up with Cath but miscalculated her arrival and ended up running after some girl down the chute who was not her, then spent the next 20 minutes frantically trying to find her (scared she had broken her leg completely at the stress fracture somewhere after mile 17 when I let she, Smooth, and Rad get way ahead. I went home with 23 miles under my belt--threw my son an all day long huge birthday party and ran another 4 in the evening. Not the Utah Valley Marathon I had envisioned. But according the clock, I "finished" in 4:11 I really need to get my hernia and my hamstrings fixed before I do this again. | 