Top of Utah Marathon

So, last Saturday we finally ran our marathon. After 18 weeks of training, I was ready to prove to myself that I could do this. Logan, where the race took place, is about 3 hours North of Provo. We dropped Eve off Friday afternoon with our wonderful friends, and we headed off to Logan in the Dodge Grand Caravan that we borrowed, since we don't have a car anymore and have lost renting privileges (just kidding). We arrived at the Marathon Expo around 7pm and picked up our packets containing our bibs, tracking chip, brochures advertising future marathons, and a long-sleeve yellow running shirt with "Top of Utah Marathon" on it. As there was a restaurant next door offering a pasta special for all marathon runners, we decided to have dinner there. It was buffet style so I helped myself to seconds and thirds with desserts as Levi took a picture to immortalize my decadence.
We were lucky enough that our bishop had friends living in Logan who welcomed us in their home for the night. We went off to bed at 9:30pm with knots in our stomaches at the prospect of the ordeal coming up.

After waking up at 4:45am, we quickly put on our running attires, packed up our things, and drove off to the place where the school buses were picking up the contestants. We did not expect it to be so cold: everyone was wearing golves, sweats, and hats except for us. We were trembling because of the low temperature, but we were soon inside a heated bus. We had taken with us ibuprefen, gum, lip balm, and water. I wish we had taken a disposable camera as well, since it's impossible to describe the beatuy of the mountains, the thrill of the starting line, the frustration of waiting in line for the port-a-potty, the suffering and the physical challenge of this event.

Farmers and hunters lined up next to the starting line with their guns to give the signal at 7am. Runners rushed off as well as they could considering the crowd of runners surrounding them. Finally we were off, but since we were still trying to keep ourselves warm, we were a little numb at first. We stayed together from start to finish: The first half was downhill; it was quite an easy run. We made sure to slow down and walk through every station and grab some water and fruit. At mile 8, Levi spotted a box of donuts and asked if he could grab one; turned out that those were for the volunteers helping at the station, but the person was kind enough not to say anything and told him that he could...it was quite funny.

I forgot to mention that as we were waiting for the start of the race, we overheard one runner talking to another; the latter was barefeet and he was planning to run without either socks or shoes. Needless to say, we never saw him again throughout the race!

The slope went from the start of the race ot approximately mile 15. That's whre I hit the wall...I had a hard time to adjust to running on even ground, but by mile 17, I felt a new rush of energy. Levi was thre encouraging me to keep up with the pace and to concentrate on finishing. By mile 20, Levi "hit the wall" and I was the one cheering for him. The hard part was getting into the city...we ran through the suburbs and into Logan. It seemed that they were trying to make up mileage by making us run around blocks, so we the last two miles seemed the longest; everytime we turned the corner of a street, we were disappointed not to see the finish line.

Finally, we as we were on the verge of crossing the finish line , I grabbed Levi's hand so we would cross together...what I love most about running marathons, is the feeling that if I can do it, I can do anything!
We walked to cool down and accustom our legs to standing still. We were offered the finisher's medal and we found a patch of grass to lay on. I was already thinking of running another one next year, while Levi said to me: "never again!"

I just want to finish by saying that we ran the Logan Marathon in 4:22; and we finished thanks to each other. For me, this was a reminder of how we need to pace ourself through life, and not try to have it all at once. We need to enjoy the moment and stay optimistic to cope with the hard times and we'll keep a sweet memory of trials and challenges because of our attitude and of the support of our loved ones.

The Logan Temple