I Survived!!!

That is my main thought about running my first full marathon-I survived!!! Even though I have been training for months to run the Salt Lake City Marathon, when it came down to it..I was still worried if I could actually finish it. The farthest I had ever run up to that point was 22 miles so I was worried if I could get in 4 more. I am so grateful that my little sister (who has run many marathons) decided to help me train (even though we live 150 miles apart) and then decided to run the race with me-at my pace.
I decided that I wanted to run the race in 4:30. I had actually trained to run it faster than that but I wanted to enjoy the experience and actually make it to the end happy. We started out the race great-(even though we still weren't even running after we finally crossed the start line-it was so packed where we were). The weather was perfect! I was so thankful for the coolness and the clouds that were covering the sun--perfect running weather! The first half seemed to go by pretty fast...I think around mile 18 or so I started to feel like it might never end, but I just kept going and reminding myself that I had done this before. Once we got to mile 22, I started to question myself since I had never gone beyond that before and I was getting tired...but I just kept reminding myself of all the work I had done. Once we came around Liberty Park and onto State Street I started to panic a little. My sister has run this marathon before..but we should have apparently looked at a new map because we didn't know that they had changed the very last part of the race and we had to run all the way up that road to the Eagle Gate. The wind was blowing in our faces and I was so tired as we started mile 25 and I just couldn't imagine getting up that hill (really it probably wasn't that bad-but hey it was mile 25!).
Somehow I made it up and it was so nice to be able to run down past Temple Square and toward the Gateway. I finally started believing the people who were saying "Your almost there" when I looked at my garmin and it showed that we were at 26 miles!
Crossing the finish line with my sister was awesome! I was so thankful to her for sacrificing the great time she could have got-to run with me. Our chip times were 4:32-a little off from my 4:30 goal (thanks to that last hill) but I was still happy and feeling great! I learned so much through this experience. I'm sure that I could have pushed myself a little harder but it was fun to just enjoy it! The only thing that I can relate training and running a marathon too-is having my five children. Your body and mind have to get ready for months to do something that will be really hard and painful but so worth it in the end.
* I just made this video..to thank my sister for helping me survive my first marathon...