MARATHON FINISHER!

WAHOO.....I did it! :) It feels like a dream, but I did it! I know it sounds totally crazy to say this, but I totally loved all 26.2 miles of it. Well, okay minus just a couple! The Ogden Marathon is a beautiful course and I had great company to help me finish.

Of course, we had to start the girls' weekend off by making a stop at the Cheesecake Factory. For me it is all about the food. I don't share either, just ask any of these gals! :)

Laurel, Shannon, Tiff, Kim, Stacia,Dani, Amber, me, Ashley, Darla, Dana

Then we headed up to the house we rented for the night in Eden. It was a nice house that overlooked Pineview Reservoir. This is the view we had from the house...gorgeous! You would have thought we would stay up late and take advantage of a night away from our kids, but nope. It was serious business...we had races to run early the next morning! :)

This is the before picture of Shannon and me. We were waiting for the bus to take us the rest of the way to the top of our run. I had a scared smile on my face and butterflies in my stomach like crazy. I had no idea what was ahead of me. All I knew was that once I was dropped at the top, I had to run all the way back down.

It was finally race time and we were off. It was fun seeing all the different people running the marathon and wondering what their stories were. There were all different ages and all different disabilities. There were also lots of people running in honor of others for different reasons...pretty humbling!

I was surprised that the most emotional time during the race for me was about mile 7. It was when we passed the first big crowd of people cheering. My emotions went crazy and I couldn't hardly hold back the tears. I realized I was really running a marathon!! The people were yelling "You can do it, good job!" and when I heard that, I knew I could do it!!

After that the real fun began. We had an all-you-can-eat buffet the whole way down. I didn't pass anything up either! We had oranges, apples, bananas, granola bars, gatorade and even a popsicle...yum!! Then when we got to about mile 15, the water stop had wet sponges. So of course I grabbed one and had myself a cold sponge bath to cool off...it felt awesome!

We had been looking forward to the downhill part of the race, but when we finally got there (about mile 18), we were wishing for flat ground. We hadn't trained enough on downhill, so we started cramping up. I felt so bad for Shannon. Her legs were cramping so much she could hardly move. We stretched a lot and kept going and before I knew it, the finish line was in sight. I kinda felt like "wait, I am not ready to be done". I wanted to savor every moment of my first marathon!

We finished strong (with full bellies) and our whole cheering squad was there cheering. What a great feeling to see everyone so excited. Here is our after picture. With 26.2 miles behind us, we were smiling even bigger now and still standing!

Everyone else did awesome in their races too. Darla, Amber, Dani, and Tiff did the half. Dana and Ashley did the 5k. A big thanks to the pregnant chauffeurs, Kim and Stacia, for driving us to our starting points. Next year they will be running too! :)

Ya, I was pretty stinky and Stacia knew it. She kept her distance, ha ha ha!!

My mom, Braylee, Briggs, Pace, mother-in-law, father-in-law, Todd, Jaygen, Candace, Lillian, Kevin, Isabelle

(My dad was home sick, but I felt all his support!)

My biggest fans!

This marathon was a great experience for me! I am not going to be running another one any time soon (I can barely walk), but I for sure want to run one again!!!! Who else is in????? :)