THE MARATHON

Well, 2 weeks ago was the marathon. I know a lot of you have been patiently awaiting my post on how it went. OH MY GOSH!!! It was the hardest thing I've ever done! Wow!!!!! But I am so thrilled to say that I did it and that I am DONE!!! I am free! I can go out and run 6 miles if I want. Heck, I can run 10 and feel great and not have to take 4 hours out of my day to run. For 3 months I have been focused on this goal and it's always in the back of your mind: The marathon, the marathon. I feel liberated to be done, but now I find myself grasping for another run to look forward too. We'll be doing the Hobble Creek 1/2 Marathon in August with some of Brett's family. Stay tuned.

Here is my marathon story:

The week before the marathon was actually a really bad week. I ended up getting sick the Sunday before the marathon (which was on Saturday). First of all, you have to understand something about me. I have been greatly blessed with the gift of health. I hardly ever get sick. Seriously. I am so blessed. I used to take it quite for granted that I never got sick because I never knew any different. My parents and my siblings are the same too. My dad hasn't missed a day of work in like 30 years or something. We just have really good immune systems and it is a great blessing. I didn't realize how blessed I was until later in our married lives. Brett is on the opposite end of the spectrum. One of his trials in life is his health. Don't get my wrong. He is healthy and strong and very spry, but he just seems to get every little bug that is out there. He has also been plagued with migraines for many, many years and also has a lot of GI issues. (Sorry babe, I wont get into any details with that).

With that said, you can imagine my shock when I started to get sick. I half-heartedly attribute my sickies to staying up late the week before reading this book:


I had started reading this book the week before the marathon and could not put it down! Any of those who have read it will know what I mean! So, I was thinking my lack of sleep had started to take effect on my body and if that ever happens, I know all I need to do is get extra rest and pop vitamin C drops. So, that is what I started to do. I did that Monday. I did that Tuesday. Nothing changed. I actually got worse. I had this terrible cough that would keep me up at night. I couldn't fall asleep because of my cough and then when I did finally fall asleep, I kept waking up to cough. It was horrible! So, then I decided to spend all day Wednesday in bed. Maybe more rest would help. Well, napping was good, but then by the night time, I was wide awake! I tried spending Thursday in bed, just being careful not to nap so I could be sleepy by night time. That didn't help either. I still felt totally lousy. On top of it all, Wednesday and Thursday I woke up with terrible migraines. Now, these aren't the kind of migraines Brett gets, but they're bad. I can't be in the light and any noise totally aggravates the pain. I rarely get migraines. What was going on with my body?

I was starting to get very worried about the marathon. Before, I was so emotionally and mentally ready to do this. I've been thinking about it every day, all day, for 3 months! I was determined to achieve my goal! I was about to attempt something I never thought I could ever in my life do! I've been determined to do this for so long and really talked to myself mentally and physically, pushing myself further than I ever thought I could go. I had trained hard and long and felt so good during training! I was pumped and I was ready. I knew it was going to be hard. I knew it probably wasn't going to be all that fun-- especially towards the end. But, I was ready. I was excited. But, as you can imagine, when you become that involved and engrossed in something and then it appears that you may not be able to accomplish that goal you set for yourself because of circumstances beyond your control, you start to loose it! And that's exactly what happened to me! I was loosing it! I was a basket case by Thursday. I was emotionally and spiritually and mentally drained. How could this be happening? I never get sick and now I'm sick and I can't shake it! All the cures that usually work were not working and I was all out of ideas! Something I had trained so hard for and been so diligent and changed my mindset to thinking that I could be a marathoner, something that had taken so much of my time and that I had worked and worked and worked for!!! How could this be happening!!!!!? People were telling me to drop out of the marathon and I was ready to explode!!!!! How could they even suggest that? I would run this no matter what. I HAD to.

Then doubt starts to set in. What was I going to do? How could I run feeling this way? Could I really do this? It's hard enough to run 26.2 miles feeling good. How could I do it? Doubt. Fear. The worst things that you can be feeling days before your first marathon.

Well, I was in bad shape. It was horrible. And you know that when you're emotionally on a downward spiral, when you don't get quality or a good quantity of sleep, everything is worse, right? So, that is how I was feeling the days before the marathon. Then, on Thursday night, Brett gave me a blessing.

It was beautiful.

Heavenly Father knew exactly what I needed to hear. I am so grateful to have the priesthood on the earth! And that my husband has this power in his very hands to bless us specifically in the name Jesus Christ and to tell us what our Father wants us to know, do and say. It was incredible. I bawled like a baby. I had the best night's sleep I'd had all week. It still took me a long time to get to sleep, but I slept soundly once I did fall asleep. The next morning I didn't wake up with any headaches!! Friday I woke up feeling healed emotionally, mentally and spiritually. I felt, seriously, 100% better than I did the day before. Physically, I still had my cough and sore throat, but I knew that I could do this marathon. I knew I had put in the time and I knew Heavenly Father would help me and bless me because I had prepared and worked every day for months to reach my goal. I knew I could do this. So, I decided and I was determined, even if I still felt sick, this was something I had to do. I had set a goal, and by golly, I was going to do everything I could to accomplish that goal. So, Friday afternoon we set off for Logan. We decided to stay with Jeff and Brandi (Brett's brother) on Friday night, and then drive up to Bear Lake on Saturday morning before the race.

Well, that night I didn't hardly sleep at all. I think total, I got 3 hours of sleep....i was coughing most the night, and then just the anxiety of it all. I just didn't rest well. But, we woke up and got on our way. We made it in time and loaded up on the bus so to be transported to the starting line. It took us 45 minutes to get there, and the speed limit was 55 almost the whole time!!!! I seriously couldn't believe how far he was taking us!! It seemed way further than 26.2 miles! Seriously, it seemed forever away. I kept telling myself it was OK and that I could do it. I've trained and done everything I could do. Well, the race started off great and the lake was beautiful. The weather was perfect- a little chilly to begin with, but not too cold, and not too hot. Brett and I were keeping a good pace-- right around a 10 minute mile. That pace is good for me-- that's the pace I trained at and it was perfect.

But, by mile 8 something happened. In all my training runs I usually start feeling the 'achy bones feeling' by mile 16 or 17. Then you just know, the rest of the race you're going to ache. Well, it was 8 miles in-- a little over an hour and I was already feeling it. I was already achy. I was actually feeling horrible. WHAT WAS GOING ON??? WHY??? What was happening? Never in any of my training runs did I ever feel this yucky this early. Anyway, then my mind started messing with me. I started to doubt. I started to tear up. My throat started closing. I was thinking. "If I've only done 8 miles, I still have 18 to go. How can you do this? You've never felt this yucky before and it's hard enough when you're feeling good. How are you ever going to do this?" Then, I almost started crying. My throat started to close every time I almost cried. How was I going to do this?

Luckily my knight-in-shining armor was with me!! Brett really helped me get myself out of my rut mentally. He talked me through it. I also relied heavily on Heavenly Father. I recalled the words of my blessing and a quote from Elder Wirthlin this past conference: "Sometimes those who go the slowest, end up going the farthest." I knew if I could stop worrying about how fast I was going, then I could focus on just running one step after the other and keep on going until I was done. After that I felt better and until about mile 21 I was good.

Then the last 5 miles seemed to drag on FOREVER! It was a pretty good gradual climb, too...just enough uphill to make it harder! Then at 4 miles to go, Brett's brother, Mike comes driving by in his van looking for us! He sees us and yells and honks and is so happy to see us! A few minutes later Mike comes driving by again with Marla (Brett's mom) and Jeff (Brett's brother). If any of you know Marla, she is the best cheerleader in all the world!! We were totally pumped to see those guys! They were hanging out the window and screaming and cheering for us! It was AWESOME!!! It did my heart SO MUCH GOOD to see them. With 2 miles left, they met us and cheered for us and told us to keep going. With 1 mile to go I almost burst into tears, but I knew I couldn't breathe if I did that, so I had to control my emotions. We came around the corner to the finish line. There was a huge crowd waiting and cheering us on. All our family was there and our kids were waiting for us. It was an incredible feeling! It was awesome! We were going to be done!!! I started bawling and we crossed the finish line! It felt so good to be done. I couldn't believe we did it! Finishing was the most awesome feeling in the world!

I am so thankful for the power of the priesthood. I couldn't have gotten myself to the right place mentally to be able to do this race without the blessing I was given. I am grateful for Heavenly Father's help in getting me to the finish line. I am so thankful Brett was there with me. After finishing it really made me love and appreciate Brett even more because this was not his 1st marathon. He had done the St. George marathon in 2000. He knew how hard and gruelling it was going to be. But he was glad to do it with me. What an awesome man!

I know I did my best and I feel good about my efforts. I have no regrets. A little part of me does wonder, though.....how different would a marathon be if I was feeling 100%? Maybe I'll have to try again in the future, but not in the near future.....

I just wanted to thank my wonderful family for all their love and support during the marathon. Each week I'd train on Tuesday's. The twins were in pre-school with Brett's mom. That was the only time block long enough for me to go out on my long runs. I couldn't have done it without her! Then, all my sweet sister-in-laws would be waiting for me at my MIL's house after pre-school, wondering how my runs went. They were always so supportive and positive. Then, all the support the day and weekend of the race. I cannot tell you all how happy and thrilled and elated we were that you were there. My family was busy moving my parents. But Brett's family was able to be there. Brett's mom, Jeff and Brandi, and Mike and Amy drove all the way up to Bear Lake to cheer us on! What support!!!! Then, Greg and Cherry and Dave and Natalie and their families snuck into our house, cleaned it all up decorated it with balloons and treats and put a big banner on our garage! What a great treat to come home to after running 26.2 miles!! It was incredible. I am so thankful for all my many wonderful blessings.

This is me and my friend, Teri, who also did the marathon. We are smiling because we are done!

More pictures to come.