Here is Mel's report of the 2010 Painter's Half Marathon
I was worried. I was real worried. My training got interrupted by a foot injury taking me out of running for about 5 weeks. I started running again one week before the big day, the longest run being 6.5 miles.
The morning of the race came with fog and a light mist of rain. Half of the Hurricane 8th Ward & many other friends met at the Dixie Center for the start of the race. It was nice to talk with one another & get pumped up. I saw one of my friends from work that is just getting into running. He was running his first 5K. The smile on his face was priceless.
Ok, time to start the race. Cory & I moved toward the back because we weren’t trying to break any records. The first couple of miles felt pretty good. We started out slow as to not be completely burned out by the time we finished (at least that was the plan). Just after the first aid station we came upon two distinct people. One was a speed walker and the other was this bigger obnoxious man in a sick fluorescent green wife beater tank top. I told Cory they could not beat us. We played the yo-yo game for miles. We would pass them & they would pass us. It was starting to get ridiculous.
One of the times we passed them up this ginormous hill & at the top one of the people directing traffic said “Hey that’s Cory Reese. He is an amazing piano player”. It makes me proud to be married to such an amazing guy. So back to the guys we were playing tag with. The one in the green wife beater had stopped at the bathroom so we passed him and went around a little loop. When we came around the loop there he was coming out of the bathroom & do you know what he did? He CHEATED! Instead of going around the loop he just went around the bathroom & met up with us. This went on for a couple more miles.
By the time I reached mile 7 I was starting to feel it. My hip was sore, my legs were weak. I gained some motivation when we started seeing some of our friends coming back towards the finish line. Then I realized we still had 5 more miles to get back to where they were which was mile 12. We have some crazy fast runner friends! My least favorite part of the run was the Bloomington loop. It was not my friend. It just seemed like it was an uphill battle the entire loop. It wasn’t steep; it was just a constant slow upgrade.
Towards the end of the loop there was another aid station that had candy, gummy bears, pretzels, etc… So I took a couple gummy bears & started chewing them up. Cory ruined it for me when he told me a story about an article that he had read about this similar aid station & that the girl passed on the gummy bears because she thought about where everybody’s sweaty hands had been. Out came the chewed up gummy bears in projectile vomiting fashion.
We were almost done. Every muscle in my body was aching. Cory & I crossed the finish line hand in hand with a time of 2:39. My only goal was to finish without injury, which I did, but I also beat my Bryce Canyon time on a harder course so I was proud of myself for that. I want to thank Cory for running with me even if I made him be last place in his age division. He is a great motivator & I love him so much! Bring it on Ogden half!
Congrats on your race Mel. You should have tripped up flourecent green guy. Cheaters are cheating themselves. We play the yo-yo game a lot with people in races too. Whatever it takes to keep you motivated works for me. It is great to have someone with you the whole way. Kevin is an awesome motivator too. Makes the race better. Hope the foot injury stays at bay and you have many more races down the line. Sorry you projectiled gummy bears. I had eaten them and Kevin and I discussed later who else may have had their hands in the bowl-gross....congrats again!!
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