St. George Runathon

OUR first marathon, and we did it together.  October 6, 2012. 
 I was so proud of my husband.  His longest training run was only 17
 and he didn't do as many longer runs as he should have. 
He stepped it up on race day. 
The end of the race was tough.  I tried to make myself
have an out of body experience, so I would'nt feel the pain. 
kind of like i did 2.8 years ago when i birthed my 3rd child naturally... HERE

 Starting line wating game...the nerves were setting in thinking about what we needed to do during the next 4 hours!
these girls-ricki and bri-got me through.  they helped me train.
got my behind out of bed in the early morning hours to run run run.
i wouldn't have done this without a running partner! thats for darn sure!
 marty and i couldn't train together...so thanks sistas!!

we seem so innocent and unaware...ha!
these 'high quality' pics were taken with rickis i phone:)
better than nothing!
thanks for providing memories rick, since i still own a slider w/no internet! 

We didn't have any family in town, mine were all in Lake Powell! stinkers.
but we had some dear friends come and bring our kids.
and made us posters.
and brought us donuts and drinks!
and took all these pics with her phone so we could have some documentation!

SOOO glad to be done.  couldn't stop smiling.  it felt so good to actually be DONE.
St. George marathon is such a fun race.  I've heard that from so many people, but Marty and I both had a great experience...so i believe it
there were 5716 finishers...
 

Ruby made this poster ALL by herself. 
yes, even block-cheerleader letters.  she is a pro. so sweet of her!
it was so fun to have them there at the finish.

these two crazies made it happen, i heart them.
they sacrificed the better part of the day to help us out.
we had my visiting teacher {bless her}come over at 4:45 to sit with the kids till 8
then my neighbor took them till 10
then tash and toph took them and brought them here and sifted thru the craziness of the finsih line and millions of people- with 2 double strollers & 5 kids under 2 feet tall~!!

just like Pres. Uchtdorf said during conference saturday...
we will fail to find joy in the journey if we are so focused on the finish line. 
 i truly felt calm and had fun during this run. i just took it easy in the beginning.
 leading up to 'the day', i kept calling it a race and marty kept calling it a journey, he helped me chill out and think of it as a journey- i did and i enjoyed it so much more. 
you bet i started focusing on the finish line those last 3 or 4 miles-cuz i wanted to stop running!.. but up until then i was having a good time.
 thanks for that perspective honey.  love you.
marty didn't take a picture but his time was 4:31:36!
some other blessings we noticed: 
 no injuries reported between us during training or race day...
the weather was perfect, never got too hot, mid 80's.
i was bothered by that time of the month but no cramping
our kids were well taken care of the whole day
and....we finished! 
check that off the ole' bucket list...