We finished!

Sorry, this is a LONG post, mostly just for myself so I could record the experience, but if you want a lot of details , read on. 

This past weekend we went down to St. George for the marathon.  For those of you who don't know, any marathon is 26.2 miles.  My mom has run the St. George 21 times now.  This was my 2nd.  Surprisingly enough they are addicting.  The feel of finishing is amazing.  I did the first marathon 2 years ago because all growing up I watched my mom and thought it must be easy and decided when I was little that I would run one.  As I got older I realized what a feat it was, but still wanted to do one.  As I was training for the first one, I decided that I would just do the one and be done because I was pretty miserable training.  However, running the actual marathon was awesome.  I felt much better than I thought I would and actually enjoyed the experience (crazy huh?).  So this year was quite a bit different, but the whole time I still knew I would do another sometime!  Glutton for punishment because to see me walking now- not pretty! So to let you all experience that marathon with me (mostly because I consider this my journal) we started off the night before with Alli going to sleep an hour late (also adding to the difficulty, Ryan was not there because he flew out to Minnesota for training for his new job) and then waking up a short 2 hours later very sad.  She was up for the next 2 hours and since we were at a hotel it ended up being us driving around in the car trying not to wake others up.  I got about 3 hours of sleep before we needed to be up loading the busses to get to the starting line.  As we are taking the bus up it starts raining- not just sprinkling either.  We get up the canyon and stand around the fires for over an hour- the rain is not letting up- until they finally start the race.  As we are going I just kept hoping the rain would let up- no such luck!  It rained the entire marathon, sometimes more of a sprinkle, but mostly raining pretty hard in my face.  There was also a nice headwind and it was COLD!  To paint the picture for you- my bright green shorts were almost see through, my hands and arms were numb and stiff, my legs are speckled red, my face is soaking with rain and sweat.  I am trying in vain to keep my cell phone and IPod dry in my little pack just in case Ryan or Phillip (my brother who was watching a sick and crying Alli) call.  Luckily I was able to keep up with my mom so I was able to make it.  There were times the last 8 miles that I was not sure how I would keep going- but I knew I would.  Then I talked to Phillip when I got reception and he informed me that Alli was really sick and was crying.  That gave me added motivation- I had to go as fast as I could, which still was very slow, but I had to get to her and make sure she was okay.  So we finished in 4:04:21. For all the stats you can go here I was quite pleased because although I had wanted faster, my original time was 4:04 and given the conditions I couldn't hope to be much faster.  Also add to the equation teething baby, sick baby, and overall baby, my training was not exactly that great.  However, it is such an amazing experience to run in a marathon because you see all these people running and you have this common goal of finishing.  It reminded me of life.  We are really all in this together.  It doesn't matter when we finish or what condition we are in when we finish, but we just have to keep going and doing our best.  We will have ups and downs along the way, but to get to the end and get that finishers medal and have them say you are done, good job is indescribable.  I just hope that when I get to the end of this life, no matter my condition, Heavenly Father will hug me and say you are done, good job!  Then all that I went through will be worth it.  The only thing that makes this better is then to see your family and see that they are there with you at the end, everything will be perfect.  Since it was so rainy and Alli was already sick, I told Phillip not to come to the finish line so we don't have pictures of us finishing, but here is a picture of my foot, no I have not been swimming or in the bath, just running and here is me after the marathon- I really do look like drowned rat, but o/well that is kind of what I felt like also :) 

And this is the sight that greeted me when we got back to the hotel room- you can see why I was so motivated to get back, what a little angel!  Her picture wouldn't upload and she is getting impatient so I will add it later.