Hobble Creek Half Marathon

I ran me another half marathon this year.  I usually only do one in the summer.  BUT . . . my fit brother is a go-getter and wanted me to run another with him (and he's trying to get me to do more!).  I was cool with the idea as I needed something to keep me motivated throughout the rest of the summer since my other half marathon was in June.  I wish I could say that I just keep running 6-10 miles all the time, but I need a half marathon to keep me up on my miles like that.  LOL!

Here I am with my brother loading waiting for the bus.  They said the last bus left at 5:45am.  We got there at 5:30am to catch that last bus.  Oh, no worries . . . the bus didn't even show up until 6:30.  What the heck?  We were definitely bugged.  I mean, part of us liked the fact that we weren't up the canyon freezing for an hour, but the anxiety this created was not awesome.  Plus, I really would have loved that extra hour of sleep!  When we got on the bus one of the race volunteers jumped on and said, "If the race has already started once we get you there . . . "  and then proceeded with further instructions.  Huh?  They're the ones getting us there late, so how is it fair to start the race without us?  I was not impressed.

Well, we got there about 10 minutes before the race started.  It gave us just enough time to use the port-potties, drop our bags in the trailer, and get our music going in our ears.  It was kind of stressful.

Looking at the positive . . . the run was gorgeous.  Hobble Creek Canyon is the canyon that I grew up in, so there was a joy in being able to run it.  I was also happy that I could still run all 13.1 miles without extensive training.  I mean . . . two months prior I had put in lots of training for the American Fork Half, so the month before this one I kind of geared back up with some long runs, but nothing crazy.

That being said my 10th and 11th mile were kind of killers.  I was running out of steam and I told Tyler that he was going to have to push/drag me to the end.  And, that he did!  I did get some renewed energy for the 12th mile and then he helped to push me that last 1/2 mile to the finish.  He amped up the speed and said, "Come on!  We need to beat the 2-hour mark."  It was a tough half mile, but we did it!  Our time was 1 hour, 59 minutes.  Hooray!

I absolutely LOVE having my brother to run these races with!  It's a blast.  I love having someone to encourage and I love having someone who can encourage me when I need it.

I also had a client who ran the race.  I trained her for it and she killed it!  It was fun to carpool and ride the bus with her.  She's awesome and . . . now she's kind of addicted to the half marathons too.

So, in summary this was the worst organized and least generous (swag bags were lame, the food at the end was as measly as any 5K I've run, the shirt wasn't great, etc.) half marathon I've every participated it.  However, the race route was beautiful.   And, all-in-all . . . I'm just grateful that I am healthy enough to participate in these events.  It makes me happy to feel so good!