St. George Marathon 2010

Time for the St. George Marathon!

Braden flew in from Phoenix to Vegas so he could run the race with us. We didn't get home from picking him up at the airport till about 12:30 a.m. the morning of the race. We had to get up at 4:30 a.m. to get to the buses by 5 a.m.

We loaded the bus, and headed to the start line!

Braden, Dean, and Erika

Julie

It was a very pleasant temperature at the start line, that's NOT a good thing! That means we are in for a really hot race. And HOT it was!

Julie would be the first in our group to cross the finish line at 3:51. She ran an awesome race! (Tyler and Michelle Perry are in the background.)

Next, in with a 3:57, Dean finished. Not as fast as he had hoped, but considering the heat, it was a great run. (this is a chipped race, Dean started the race 12 minutes after the gun went off, the clock is showing gun time)

Now I have to give a little background. In this same marathon last year, at about mile 23, I was running with a man, and he went over to the side of the road and said "no more, I'm done". I tried to talk him out of quitting. We had run 23 miles, and only had 3.2 miles left till we had completed a marathon! How could he quit at this point! I never found out if he finished or not. This year, I was approaching the same point in the marathon, and there was Braden walking up the hill, toward me. I figured he had already finished, and came back to encourage me. At this point, I was 5 minutes behind where I had wanted to be, so I knew I wasn't going to have a PR. When I got closer to Braden, I could see his face was about the color of his shirt. He didn't look good (no offense Braden). He was headed to the "short bus" to get a ride to the finish line. He was not going to be able to finish the race. He obviously had heat exhaustion, or close to it, his knee was really giving him problems, and one of his toenails was causing him tons of pain. He had been walking for several miles, and at this point decided it was the "short bus" for him. We decided, we would walk it together. I would walk with him, if he would promise to finish. I was not going to let this end like the man that quit last year. So Braden and I walked the last 3 miles. It was great! I really enjoyed finishing the race with Braden! I know it was a really painful 3 miles for Braden, but he did it! I enjoyed crossing the finish line of this race as much as any finish line I have crossed.

We all finished the St. George Marathon 2010!

It was great having my mom and dad come and cheer us on at that finish line. Thanks Mom and Dad.

Riley and Mitch were there to witness the craziness too. It was fun getting to know Mitch, and it's always fun to see Riley

Jeff brought his kids over to see their mom finish her first (of many) marathon. Julie's parents also came down to support her. I loved seeing these people at the end of the race.

How cool are these signs?! Thanks Jenson kids!

Ok, this proves Julie gave it her all. In the picture above, Julie is throwing up in the gutter, she even does that gracefully....give me a break! Julie was really sick for about 5 hours following the finish of the race. The paramedics checked her out and told us it was heat exhaustion. It was really important to get electrolytes in her.

Braden, Dean, Erika, Julie

Julie was a great sport to get her race shirt on and smile for a picture. At the time of this picture, she wasn't feeling very good at all. It wasn't very hard to get us to join her in bed for the photo. None of us was very anxious to stand up after sitting here posing for pictures.

Riley and Mitch were awesome. While Julie was recovering, they took the little kids to McDonald's and let them play there. That was such a huge help! The kids loved hanging out with Riley and Mitch, and Julie was able to concentrate on getting herself back to good health.
We have a tradition of eating Cafe Rio after marathons and half marathons. Dean went and got one salad for the 4 of us to share, that was more than enough. Because of the heat, none of us felt like eating, but we had a tradition to keep!

We stayed at our friend Gloria's house. They have misters on the back patio. It was a great way to cool off, and it was very entertaining!

This was a fun weekend. We got to spend a bunch of time with friends and family. We didn't get the times that we wanted to in the race, but I think each of us felt really good about our efforts, and we all finished another marathon!