26.2

I am one of those avid bucket-listers. I have one, look at it frequently, and honestly want to complete every single thing on it.

And #25 on it: FULL MARATHON.

Which is something I have actually dreamed of my entire life.

I vividly remember when I first got into running. It was the summer before my senior year of high school while Will was on his Senior Trip. I was bored so I decided to go on a jog to the paint store and paint my room while he was gone (bored? clearly).

I told my mom to meet me at Sherman Williams in 45 minutes which was approximately 2 miles away from our house. In my mind it was super far away and I didn’t know if I would even make it there. I remember walking into the paint store and feeling SO proud and accomplished that I actually ran there… from my house!!

Perspective is funny like that. Looking back, it’s easy to laugh at a mere 2 miles. But to me, that was so far. That 2 miles gradually turned into 4, then 6, then a couple half marathons and then I was hooked! I began to really love running.

I have been thinking for some time that there was no better time in my life than now to train for a marathon. I don’t have kids yet so I have (somewhat) free Saturday mornings, I live in Utah which is a beautiful training terrain, and my two best friends still live here and have always wanted run a marathon too.

The three of us signed up for the Revel marathon mid-May and were in shock for about a week that we actually paid $100 to put ourselves through this seemingly torturous task ahead.

But we were determined to do this thing.

We endured countless 5:30am Saturday wake up calls for our long runs and followed the Nike 18 week training plan. Karli was training in San Fransisco so we started an Instagram account to document where our runs were all over the place which was so fun to see!

I completed almost all the scheduled training runs, bought several new pairs of new running shoes, held off sugar for a week prior to the race, carb loaded and read almost every marathon article out there to hopefully feel more prepared.

But to be honest, nothing could have fully prepared me for my first marathon.

My stomach was in knots all week long. If someone asked me about the race I instantly got butterflies and then felt sick to my stomach.

I was already laying in bed WIDE AWAKE when my alarm went off at 4:20 am on Saturday morning. Taylor picked me up and we were on the buses heading up to Guardsmans Pass by 5am. The race didn’t start until 6:45 am so we huddled around in blankets at the top waiting for it to begin.

Once it started, my nerves still wouldn’t go away. I found myself in the bathroom the first couple miles and then dealt with a side ache for several miles after that. I felt great through miles 10-20 and then BAM.. it hit me around mile 22 that this was going to be a beast to finish.

My dad jumped in with me at mile 20 and was encouraging me the entire time. He kept saying “You are doing so great! Just keep shuffling your feet.” I kept saying thank you but in my mind I was thinking “Seriously?! I can’t do this. There’s no way I can endure 4 more miles of this.” and I could feel myself shutting down.

But then I came to a point where I could see the whole Salt Lake valley as we dropped into Fort Union. I started to get emotional.

I kept thinking about how hard I trained for this and how I am NOT a quitter. I thought about how I can do anything for 30 minutes and how this has always been a dream of mine. I thought about pain and about how my current pain was nothing compared to what other people endure on a daily basis.

So I just pushed all the negative thoughts out of my mind and was determined to just keep going. My dad grabbed a cup of ice cold water at mile 25 and threw it in my face as a joke which made me laugh and realize it would be over so soon so I just needed to enjoy it.

Crossing the finish line was unreal. I was overwhelmed with so many emotions but mostly just wanted to go lay under a tree to try and get my heart rate down. At that point, I almost felt too tired to cry.

(Also, please care about Jensen running through the finish line handing me a Diet Coke?? ?)