Half Marathon

I did it!!!!! I finished in 2:13! I am really proud of myself and so happy that I chose to run today! It was a beautiful morning and I met some really great people along the way. I got up at 3:30 this morning and picked up my friend, Kiersten Peterson, at 4:15. My bus wasn't going to leave until 5:30 a.m., but when I got there at 5:00, they loaded us up, and took us away! We had a long time to wait at the starting line, but it was kind of fun standing around the the fire pits and watching all the people.

There were 3,500 runners running the half. There were people everywhere! We started over towards the finish line a little before the race and I was off! I crossed the start line at 7:05. It felt really good to be running again! I caught up to one of my mom and dad's old friends, Tom Jensen, in the canyon. I stuck with him for 9 miles! It was so great to see him and catch up, it's been a lot of years. He also kept pushing me to keep running! There's no doubt in my mind that I would have stopped and walked had he not been there. At one point I was falling a little behind and he turned to me and said, "Steff, are you coming?" Most people would be embarrassed to be out run by a 65+ year old man, but I felt privileged to be running with such a good guy!

I went into this race with no expectations. I hadn't run since April 14 and even then, it was only 10 miles. I had been seriously sick this week and even tried to sell my bib four days before the race. I have been in a little bit of a rut lately, and kind of saw the light this week. I felt like I was ready to stop feeling whatever it was I had been feeling, I'm not even sure what I was feeling, and start living my life again. I expected to run/walk this race. It was to be a new beginning and a fresh start for me. It felt really good when I ran across that finish line!

Here's to a fresh start!