Proof it's Really Happening

13.1

I have never been so sore in my life.

Never did I think the day would come (before the year 2065 at least) that getting out of a car, going to the bathroom, and going down a small flight of stairs would be among the most daunting, physically exherting tasks of the day.

The weirdest part? How incredibly happy the current sorry state of my body makes me. My sore muscles are proof that I actually accomplished the thing I halfheartedly pledged to do a few months ago. I sucessfully finished a half marathon.

I won't lie; I don't necessarily love running. Or at least, I sure didn't when this whole marathon idea crept into my head. I basically just signed up for 2 reasons: First, because four of my friends were doing it and I didn't want to be left out. I suppose this may reveal a lot about me as a person; if Cara, Jeni, Aislinn and Kate had signed up for a group cliff-jump, I would probably have been right there, enthusiastically registering my life away as well. I also figured the $46 entrance fee might provide the forced motivation/willpower that was apparently crucial in getting my lazy, atrophied butt back into the gym. At that point, nothing short of the idea of throwing away almost $50 bucks (a decent lunch shift- I always think of money in terms of serving shifts) would have lured me onto that treadmill.

Two months, three monster sized blisters, several long canyon runs, and countless Kardashian viewing sessions (thank you Gold's Gym, for mounting TVs on those treadmills), it was October 30th. The Halloween Half Marathon, advertised on its website as "The Most Extreme Halloween Race in the World!" had arrived.

I'm not the type of person who likes to draw attention to myself in large crowds, so the idea of dressing up and running the race in costume didn't appeal to me. Luckily my friends were on the same page, so we all bundled up in our token spandex running pants- every girl seems to have a pair- and our skull adorned, long sleeved yet breatheable race shirt we picked up the night before. We also took that night's outing as an opportunity to binge (aka carbo load) on pizza. We had about seven different servers walk past our demolished, empty plate/pizza crust littered booth and ask with incredulous looks, if we needed more food. "Wow, you girls really put that down!" and "Nice job ladies, VERY impressive", were also among comments made. We made sure everyone knew we were athletes, and not a support group of bulimics.




The race began at 9:00 am, but we had to board the busses in the mall parking lot much earlier. In hindsight, I can easily say that the bus ride up was much, MUCH worse than the race its self. I have never felt so carsick in my life. I literally dry heaved no less than three times into the wrinkled manilla envelope containing my race bib number. Once we got up there, I felt fine. We were all anxious to start the race.



Th race isself basically started off as a herd of oddly dressed people stampeding down a mountain, and ended up the same; only the people were a little more sparsely situated along the trail and a whole lot sweatier. I found myself getting oddly competitive during the race and credit my faster than anticipated finish time to a man in jeans. A small group of runners had unofficially banded together, since we were going about the same pace. One of which was a man in jeans (maybe a cowboy?), who I was determined to beat. I'm sorry, but I couldn't let someone in DENIM beat me. I was also secretly racing a Lauren Conrad lookalike, Legolas, and a Hispanic Elvis. I am proud to say that my determination to beat these costume clad athletes, an ipod full of sick rap beats provided by Ice Cube and Juvenille, and a whole lot of adrenaline brought me to the finish line in 1 hour and 59 minutes. I officially ran 13.1 miles in less than 2 hours.

Yes, even 2 days later, my hamstrings are still permanently on fire. Yes, I still have to walk backwards down the stairs. I don't know how I am going to get through tonight's work shift. But the finisher's medal is amazing (and also misleadingly reads "Provo Marathon", creating the misleading impression that I ran a full marathon. I would do it again in a second. Well, probably not a second. More like 2 hours. But maybe a little faster...