June - The Month of Running

Back in February I was searching for motivation and decided to sign up for the Utah Valley Marathon.  I'm glad I did.  I like to run and I run more consistently when I have a goal.  I went on some great training runs around City Creek, the Avenues, and in Washington DC.  I was feeling pretty good until June 14 at 4:00 am when the bus kept driving and driving up Provo Canyon for over an hour.  I was thinking there was no way I was going to be able to get myself all the way back to the finish line!  As the sun started to come up we were off...leaving starting line in a cow pasture near Wallsburg, UT.  I began putting one foot ahead of the other and slowly by slowly started to make my way there.  I felt really good for the first half marathon....and it was BEAUTIFUL watching the first rays of the sun light up the back side of Timpanogos!  Then the wind started picking up and more uphill than I was anticipating slowed me down a little bit, but somehow I made it to the end.  It was fun to do it with my dad and to run through my old neighborhood and running routes in Provo to the new Provo Temple site.  It was a beautiful day, wonderful to be outside and accomplishing a goal (in just over 4.5 hours)!

While I was training for the marathon a friend asked me to join her team for the Ragnar Wasatch Back (200 miles, 12 runners, 2 vans, and about 34 hours from Logan to Park City).  I have always wanted to do a relay and thought this would be the perfect opportunity.  Even though I only had a couple of weeks between events and didn't know the rest of the team, I had a great time and am glad I did it!  I actually learned a lot participating and would recommend it to anyone that likes running, seeing beautiful places, and getting to know new people.  It's quite the adventure and LOTS of fun!

I had one of the easier legs - 5, 17, 29 (just over 16 miles total, including my extra half mile to run through the traffic to get to my first exchange).  My first leg was my hardest - about 8 miles up Avon Pass which is usually a hot and dusty continual uphill, but with a big thunderstorm the night before it was a mud hill.  I appreciated the overcast skies and a few of the same runners that kept encouraging me up the hill.  My other legs were through Morgan at dusk and then through Heber City the next morning.  Between runs there was time to cheer on teammates and other runners, get to know other teammates, relax a little bit at Snowbasin, wait in traffic, meet up with our other van, eat, sleep for a couple of hours under the stars on the lawn of North Summit High School, run into a few friends on other teams, and enjoy the beautiful place that I live!

A few things that I learned:
* training and a specific goal is important
* a little bit of encouragement and cheering helps a lot (from teammates, other runners, spectators)
* teamwork is key - it's important to learn to work together, communicate, assume the best of each of other and positively encourage and support each other
* it's fun to get to know new people - you learn a lot about people being stuck with them for 34 hours - I had some great teammates and was inspired by their talents
* runners are a happy, positive, encouraging, crazy group (in all the chaos and tiredness I only saw anyone get upset or be rude maybe once or twice...it seemed uncharacteristic of the rest of the world)
* we live in a BEAUTIFUL world!  (I need to get up to enjoy the sunrise more often!)
* it's wonderful to do something new and different!