AP: 10:43
I won a free entry to this race at the St George Half marathon expo. I planned to use it as a training run for Ogden. Smooth and Karen were also running it too!
The race started at 8:00am, so I got to sleep in. The race was very small-maybe 50 people. It was also a cupless race so I wore my Orange Mud pack. If I was racing this race, it would stink to not have cups!
I ran the first 10 miles with Smooth and Karen. It was wonderful to catch up and enjoy their friendship. But my kids were home with a babysitter and I was starting to stress about being gone so long. So I sadly left Smooth and Karen and picked up the pace.
I found a group of ladies just ahead. I ran with them until mile 16. They were training for the Wasatch 100 and I appreciated their chill ultra attitudes. I left them at the aide station. It was starting to get hot and I started to pass a lot of people.
We ran by lots of orchards-it was beautiful. I started to hit the wall around mile 22. I was grumpy. My ultra buddy caught up to me and we ran the last mile together. I was glad to have the company. I grabbed some Gatorade at the finish and drove back to find Smooth and Karen. Smooth was cramping and was trying to smile! Bless her for running 55 marathons.
I wanted to stay and chat, but knew I needed to get home. My ITB started to bother me again. I'm really questioning running Ogden. My body is broken. My hips and hammie have been angry for a long time. I'm planning on taking a month off from running. Two weeks nothing and two weeks cross training. I wonder if running Ogden will dig me into a deeper hole. I'm looking forward to my rest.
Usually if I have to take time off, I get frantic. But I'm not that way at all. I see so many motivational quotes and movies on the Internet. I see in Facebook people running a gazillion miles. But that's not my problem....getting motivated to start. My problem is the need to rest. Be smart and let my body recover. When I was talking with my new ultra buddy along the course, she talked a lot about overtraining, burnout, and injury. I finally get it. I'm slow to that train, but I get it. Having life-run balance is tricky. I'm hoping to lean more toward the life balance right now. Maybe that will help me get my BQ.
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