Snow Canyon Half Marathon!

I ran my second half marathon last week! It was the Snow Canyon Half Marathon in St. George. I ran the Top of Utah half in August and I really was only planning on only doing one this year, but after I got done I really loved it! I though to myself, "I went through all of that work!" I didn't just want to blow it by being lazy all winter. I thought it would be fun to do one more before the weather gets too cold to run outside.
My sweet friend Breann that I've worked with and known for probably 4 or 5 years said she would run it with me. She is always so nice and willing to go along with any crazy idea that I have! Breann did all of her training on a treadmill, cause her husband is away at school, and she did it all in only 8 weeks! Marks mom and her sister also came with us and they have run at least 12 half marathons, so they are seasoned pros!

I didn't take any good pictures on this trip.  These are the best ones I got and they aren't even running ones!

 Kristen, Melanee (my mil), Breann

We stopped and ate at The Pizza Factory in Cedar City on our way down. 

Breann, me 

(Mark always laughs at me when I take pictures with my phone 

I don't look at the camera I look at the image, so I'm always looking the wrong way! Oh well!)

I was excited to go to St. George for the warm weather, but sadly the cold followed us down there! The race was so cold! I'm not even sure what the temperature was I think it was in the low 40's! Not my idea of perfect running weather, but at least we didn't get too sweaty! The race course was beautiful! It was mostly downhill, so that is always nice! I beat my previous time by two minutes! I was worried I'd do worse cause I wasn't able to train as well the second time around. I kept skipping runs, and at one point I wasn't even sure if I'd be able to run the whole thing again. It took me 1 hour 51 minutes and I was 29th in my age group, so not to shabby! My plan now for the winter is to keep running, but nothing more than 5 miles for awhile!
It's funny though it wasn't that long ago that running 5 miles seemed impossible! Now 5 miles doesn't seem that bad!

First, I have to say I love the new changes to blogger!  I can rearrange my pictures now!  

This is sooo much better!  

I just wanted to give a little update on my reading for 2011.  One of my new years resolutions this year was to read 8 books.  Here we are in September and I've read 5 books.  Just 3 more to go, so I think I'll make it.  

 In May I read Matched by Ally Condie.  It is a great book, and Ally Condie is from Salt Lake City, so that's pretty cool.  If you like Hunger Games and Twilight you will like this book.  It's basically the same sort of love triangle situation.  I really liked it and I'm excited for the next book in the series to come out.  It's called Crossed and will be released November 1st. 

I really enjoyed reading Running with Angels.  It is written by Pamela Hansen and it is her story about a lot of things, but a lot of it focuses on her losing over 100 lbs and running her first marathon.  It's pretty inspiring.  She also lost two children shortly after they were born and has two children that have special needs.  One thing that really stood out to me in the book was eventually she realized she needed to make herself and her health a priority.  Even though that is hard when your a mom and you have kids and so many other things to take care of.  It's a really great book if you need a little inspiration and perspective in life!  

I recently finished reading Dave Ramsey's book The Total Money Makeover!  It is awesome!  Really Dave is a genius!  His book is just full of common sense and it's just refreshing to read it!  I listen to Dave on the radio pretty often and my sister and brother-in-law gave me this book to read.  The book is great.  If you have any questions about money and especially getting out of debt you need to read this book.  Just for the record we actually don't have any debt except our home. . . but this book is still really helpful.  I learned a lot about budgeting and what percent of your take home pay should go to different things like food and your home and stuff like that!  Also I think the best thing I got out of this book was that you should make a new budget for every month!  I don't know why this never occurred to me before.  Mark and I have tried to set a budget many times in our marriage, but every month there are always different expenses that come up, so it's never seemed to work out.  It just makes sense to make a budget for each new month.  Then you can kind of plan ahead for that month!  I made a budget for us for September and I know were only 3 days in, but so far I've stuck to it and it feels great!  

I've got a pretty big list of books I want to find time to read, but if you have any suggestions I'd still appreciate them!  

New job and half marathon!

Mark started a new job last week! He still works for the state, but now he's an environmental consultant/ rules coordinator. Not sure what he does, but it pays more :)

We're really excited for him and feel very blessed that he was able to get this job!

I ran my first half marathon on Saturday! It was lots of fun and I for sure want to do another one someday!

My friend Stephanie and I went to Logan on Friday night and stayed with these fun people!

Marks cousin Whitney, uncle Rex, and aunt Dessa! They were so sweet they took us to dinner on Friday night!

Then we had to get up at 5 a.m. to make it on time for the bus!

The race started at 7.

I ran as fast as I could knowing the faster I ran the sooner I'd see these cute faces waiting for me at the finish line!

Baylee!

Owen!

I'm the one in the white shirt (if you couldn't tell)!

Baylee and Mark made this cute sign for me!

Owen thought I was gross and sweaty!

Me, Owen, Baylee, my mom!

Love these guys!

Stephanie and me after we finished!

Thanks so much to my Mom and Mark for getting the kids up and ready really early in the morning to come see me! It really was such a motivator to think that if I just kept going I'd see all of them!

My goal was to finish in under 2 hours. The first 7 miles were downhill and there was a wind so that made it pretty easy for me! I finished in 1 hour and 53 minutes! Woohoo! Quite a bit faster than I thought! I came in 30th in my age category. Out of just women I was 175th and 438th overall. Not to bad for a race with 2400 people!

It really is so amazing to me what our bodies are capable of! I've wanted to run a half marathon for a few years, but never really thought I could do it! It's crazy to think that just a few months ago running 3 miles was hard, and now I can do 13!

After the half marathon my parents watched Baylee and Owen so Mark and I could go out. We went to celebrate his new job and my first half marathon! It was lots of fun. We ate at Boston's and we finally saw Harry Potter!