13.1 and then some

So last weekend was our Moab 1/2 marathon. We decided to make a weekend of it so we took Friday off of work and drove down. The weather was AMAZING! I loved being out in the sun so much. I have missed it dearly.

Matt of course had to stop at every bike shop in town. Even the Poison Spider bike shop, which was weird because he is deathly afraid of all spiders. We strolled around town, ate our pasta for carbo loading, and just enjoyed being away.

We couldn't find a hotel ANYWHERE in Moab, so we ended up staying in Green River, which is about 45 minutes away. We still made it on time to board the very last bus to the starting line.

We made some friends on the bus, in the bus line, and in the potty line. That's what these races do to people. Automatic friends. It's great!

The course itself was fabulous. We ran down the canyon next to the Colorado River and then through the streets of Moab. It was really nice. I forgot my knee braces, so about Mile 9 my knees were hurting pretty badly.

But I kept going. Matt stayed with me the whole time, so we both crossed the finish line after 2 hours and 42 minutes. Matt could have finished a lot faster, but it was nice to run together. I only had to stop once at a porta potty, so that was pretty good. There were also these ladies playing the bongo drums at about Mile 10. That was cool!

The weather was gorgeous. Some people thought it was too hot, but I thought it was perfect.

We had to check our times. And then we had to crash on the grass for awhile. Running 13.1 miles is not an easy task! We saw a couple friends there from our ward and old ward, and I saw some of my students.

Then, as if running a half marathon wasn't enough, we decided to go to Arches National Park. We were in Moab after all and it's not like we get there very often. So we took a lovely little drive through the park and saw all the cool rock formations.

We saw some rock climbers on this cliff and just watching them was making me hyperventillate! I don't know how they can do stuff like that.

These rock formations are so cool! How do rocks do that? And how did all these arches form?

I thought it was really cool that there were these snow-covered mountains off in the distance.

After driving around for awhile, we decided to hike to Delicate Arch. Matt had never seen it and it is a Utah icon. So we hiked the 3 miles to the arch.

OK, it was more like hobbled the 3 miles to the arch. But we made sure to wear our race shirts so people would understand why I was limping. One lady even had the nerve to tell me that I looked as bad as she felt!

I did look pretty bad though. I had this gross, scaly cold sore on my mouth and I was limping the whole way since I had hurt my knee during the race. Oh well!

Delicate Arch was pretty cool though. I'm not sure it was the best idea to go there after running 13 miles, but it was still cool.

We drove around a little more, but by then we were pretty much beat, so we drove back to the hotel and crashed.

We did see a lovely sunset though. We were too tired to go get anything to eat so we ordered pizza and then promptly fell asleep.

Sunday we (ok, mostly I) was pretty sore. But by Monday I was back to normal. All I have to say is I have got a long way to go until I will be ready for the full marathon. Yikes!