Guest post by the twin sis... enjoy

Hey blog peeps... I thought I would have my twin sis write up a guest post.

In fact, I have asked several of my sister's to write up a guest post... so stay tuned, more fun guest post to come.

Janice asked me to write a guest post here on her running blog. That makes me happy because I can now say, I AM A RUNNER! Sometimes I don’t think of myself as “A Runner” because I compare myself to my two sisters who are crazy runners…. but I am a runner. I know this cause I am at a point that I LOVE to run and WANT to run.

I have run 4 half marathons, and several 5k’s and my sister Janice kept asking me when I would run a full marathon with her, and I just wasn’t interested. I didn’t believe 26.2 miles was a distance I could finish. Well just over a year ago she talked me into running my first full. She would be in Utah visiting and so my sisters Maria, Janice and I were going to run the Deseret News marathon in Salt Lake City. Training was going great and I had just run down in St. George (Gorgeous Southern Utah) 13 very happy miles. I remember coming back from that run and texting Janice, “I finally feel like a runner”.

Well what would you know, the following Wednesday as I was doing hill repeats, I injure my IT Band. Ugh it was bad. I rested, iced, and stretched. I did all the things I should and it wasn’t getting any better. I had to cancel running the marathon with Maria and Janice. I was there throughout the course cheering them on and then at the finish, but the jealousy and sadness still overwhelmed me. Well I rested most of that summer and babied my knee, but all I could think was “I want to run”. The ache within my heart, confirmed I was indeed a runner. By August I started running short distances with no pain and just kept getting stronger. I ran all winter and then it was early January or February that Janice said she would be in Utah in April. So we signed up for the Salt Lake City Marathon. This would be my first full marathon, and I was excited and nervous all at the same time. I had the best support throughout the race. Janice, Maria, and Jason (Maria’s husband) stayed by my side all 26.2 miles, which helped so much. It was hard, but I finished happy and strong. I was immediately determined to improve my time of 4:31.

This brings us to my 2nd marathon.

June 11th…. The Utah Valley Marathon, which was suppose to be mostly down hill. I started my training, but due to only having 2 months between the two marathons, I knew this training would be shortened. With about a month left in my training I started to slack and lose motivation. I wasn’t running as much as I needed during the week. It really showed on my Saturday morning long runs. After shortening several runs by 4-5 miles of the scheduled miles, (due to lack of motivation) I finally got a full 20 miler in, just 2 shorts weeks before marathon #2.

Race day came and I knew I could finish, I just wasn’t sure how fast. I wanted a sub 4 hour, but with the lack of training, I wasn’t sure if that would happen.
Alarm went off at 3:15am, I got up, got dressed and ready for the race. Do I have everything.?. checked all the items off my list and made myself a peanut butter and honey bagel. Grabbed my drink and ate in the car as my husband drove me to the buses. This was really weird because in my first race I had 3 others telling me where to go and what to do…. now I’m all by myself. Time to put my big girl panties, on and figure it out on my own. I Got in line and caught the 4:00am bus. Took the 50 minute bus ride to the top of the canyon, where I waited for about an hour for the race to start. I got in line for the potties which took some time.

(She needed the GO GIRL-- LOL)

Then I wandered around and ran into a few people I knew, and then got ready to start the race. The gun went off and there I was, running my 2nd marathon. Never thought I would say that but so glad that I can and that I am.

Felt great it took a couple miles for it to thin out to a comfortable crowd. I Shed my jacket and gloves at about mile 3 or 4. The aid stations were great they started at mile 3 and were every 2 miles which was nice because when I got tired I knew I could just get to the next aid station, and then I could walk while I drank. Mile 7 was my first GU, and I kind of had to pee, and knew we would be starting to run DOWN the canyon. At this point we were just coming out of Wallsburg and I didn’t want the downhill pounding to cause me to pee my pants. (Janice insert--GO GIRL) The downfall of waiting in line is losing those precious minutes. (Go GIRL) I lost about 3 minuets. I was really looking forward to some downhill running…. Oh no, that didn’t happen, there were more hills then I had planned on. It caught me off guard a bit but I would run up the hills till I needed to walk. I was feeling great, and at the half way mark I was at 2:02…

Mile 25....

Well by mile 17 my legs started crashing. I don’t think I ever hit the wall mentally but my legs were done. I had to really talk to my body and legs to push through it. I saw my husband and daughter at mile 20.5 and was so happy to see them. Stopped and stretched and he took a picture. (To send to Janice) This took a few minutes then I was off again. Mile 25…. to my surprise a beautiful tall, spunky girl jumps in with me. It was my sister Maria. She had so much energy it just about killed me. I was dead by now and trying to put on a smile. I slowly made my way to the finish line, and finished in 4:21… taking 10 minutes off my SLC time. I’ll take it.

YUMMY CHOCOLATE MILK

I am running the St George marathon (#3) in October, and by golly, my training will be different with this one…. Better.

Thanks everyone for listening to my novel of a story about running.