Race Weekend

For those of you who don't already know, I'm going to be running the Saint George marathon this October  with my friends, Meghan and Rob. We signed up for the 2012 Runner Series in order to get into the marathon.  This included two races in Saint George this Spring, and the marathon in Fall.  

Last weekend the girls and I headed to Hurricane (pronounced Hurk'n, which been told more than twice) to run the Run 4 Kids 1K and 10K. The girls, along with Jamison, were signed up for the 1K (.62 miles) and the grown ups for the 10K (6.2 miles).

Meghan's parents live in Hurricane and graciously invited us to stay at their home.  We met Meghan, Rob and Jamison at their house on Friday afternoon.  Jamison had just had his birthday and had some gifts waiting from his grandparents.

After a long drive during which Clarissa took a long nap, the kids were up until midnight.  The next morning, race day, my alarm went off at 5:40am, but I was already awake.  We all got geared up and bundled up for rain and cold weather.  

Cathy and Raquel

Jamison and Clarissa ready to go!

Little runners

At the starting line and ready to rock'n'roll!

Ok, maybe ready to go back to bed at this point.

Meghan's ankle had been bothering her, so as a precaution she taped it up before the race.  Luckily it's been better since the race.

Cuddling to keep warm.

The whole crew

On the starting line of the 1K and ready to run!

The gun barely went off and Lila was already gone!  She was so speedy!  Meghan and Cathy waited at the finish line while Rob and I ran with the little kids.  Lila was so fast, that Meghan almost missed her cross the finish line.  Her best guess is that Lila finished two to three minutes ahead of Jamison and Clarissa.  This means she ran the 1K in two to three minutes!

Go Jamison go!

Having fun!

Once she saw the finish line she was finally willing to let go of my hand and run!

Yay Clarissa!

Thanks to Meghan for this photo

1K finishers

It was a rainy day, so we planned for Cathy to take my van and all the kids back to her house while we ran the 10K.  

After we sent the others off we went to get in line for the 10K.  It was cold and starting to rain.  Rob snapped these two photos of Meghan and I with his phone. Thanks Rob!

This was the longest uphill run E V E R!  It must have been at least a mile of constant uphill.  We chugged along, talking a lot of trash.  Not only was this uphill long, but it was along the highway!  Cars were zooming past us and it was raining pretty good.  Luckily by this point the rain had let up.  We enjoyed the absurdity of it all.  We were, at this point, also very grateful to Cathy for taking the kids and that we didn't have them in the strollers!  We finished in 1:03, which considering the conditions, I'm very happy with!

After everyone showered and got warmed up we headed out to lunch with some friends of Meghan and Rob and their baby.  

Clarissa took this.

After plenty of food and multiple potty runs the girls and I hit the road.  The rain in southern Utah didn't translate to me as snow on the freeway, but it was dumping!  I was going about 60 in an 80mph stretch when the traffic came to a screeching halt.  After texting with both Jeff and Meghan I found out there were multiple car accidents on the road ahead.  We we stuck in park for about an hour and forty minutes.  All I can say is thank goodness I had both the DVD player and the little potty.  I won't go into details about the latter, but let's just say it came in VERY handy.

In park.  Oh boy.

Finally we got moving again, but there was still traffic, snow and rain most of the way home.  A trip that usually takes about four and a half hours with the kids turned into a six hour forty-five minute drive.  Ouch!  But, we were all very glad to be safely home after that!  It was fun and totally worth getting into the marathon, but I think next year I'll stick with races in the Salt Lake area.