Long blog, lots of pictures.

I have finally mustered enough motivation to blog. This summer heat has been draining me! Even though I am sitting in an air conditioned room, there is some sort of oppressive mojo hanging in the air. But I must blog! My race reports won't write themselves you know. I'll start with the Freedom Festival 5K. There was a 10K option, but I figured I could cut myself a little slack and just do the 3.1. There were thousands of people in this race! And when I looked at the results, it was obvious most of the people in it didn't do much running. My finish time was ahead of thousands of people! Thousands! That never happens to me. I feel pretty good if I can just pass a few people at the end of a race. I spent this whole 5K passing gobs of people. And that was on 2 hours of sleep. I was also really trying to focus on my form, since for this race I whipped out the Vibram's Five Fingers to get some minimalist action in. I ended up with my 2nd best finish time for a 5K (34:46) and even a medal! Not that I did anything special, every finisher got a medal. But still, kudos to the Provo Freedom Festival folks for giving bling at a 5K!

Then 3 days later, on July 7th, I ran my 8th half marathon, the Hobbler Half. This race was enjoyable for the simple fact that it was practically in my back yard. I run the Hobble Creek trail all the time. I got to sleep in a bit, since the meeting point to get on the bus was 5 minutes from my house. It was a really nice day too. It got a little warm towards the end, but there was a cool breeze for most of the morning. The guy at aid station 12 really liked my shoes, so did a little girl on the side line. You can never go wrong with blinding neon. Never. My finish time was 2:47:50. I was honestly thinking I would have done this one faster. I can attribute 5 solid minutes to waiting in line at a porta-potty. Not much I can do about that. Running with a full bladder in not my idea of a good time. At least I got an entertaining show while I waited in line. There was this one girl laying on the ground, screaming while her friend was trying to stretch out her legs. Screaming. Loudly. The best part was this was only at mile 3. I was feeling really good about my fitness level at that moment. There were misters at the finish line and I stood under them to try and get rid of the massive amounts of sweat off of my face. And that way, people would think, "oh hey that girl is just wet from the water" and not "eeeewww that girl is a sweaty beast". They had the delightful frozen treat, Creamies, at the finish line and it was most welcome. My mom also made it to this race to capture my great form at the end of the race. (I've been doing a tremendous amount of form work. I think it's paying off.)

I realized that I never posted any of the official photos from my marathon finish, so I'm adding them into this blog. And besides, who doesn't like pictures! The first picture is from the marathon (look how jubilant!), then the lower ones are from the last two races. Just ignore the fact that I'm wearing the same shirt for both races... White is good in the heat, okay you guys?