Dino Half Marathon 2013

You know those races that you love beyond what words can describe?!?  That would be today's Dino Half Marathon.  We ran down a canyon in Vernal, UT...yep I said Vernal.  It was so beautiful and the course was perfect.  Just the right amount of downhill, along with some rolling hills.  The temperature was PERFECT.  It was freezing cold at the starting line but once we got going I warmed up fast.  

RYR Pacers with all our razzmatazz!!! Pic borrowed from RunYourRace Pacers of Utah FB page

#keepittight Me, Holly, Jorge and Josh are rocking our Lime Green Pro Compression socks!

It was a pretty small race with just about 200 runners which I quite enjoyed.  There were some complaints at the starting line about there not being enough potties but really for the amount of runners we should have been fine.  People were staying in the Honey Buckets for like 20 minutes and I'm not exaggerating.  The lines weren't long at all, people were just taking their sweet time.

I was set to pace the 1:45 group and for the first time I had a follower by mile 2.  Her name was Kelli and this was her first half marathon.  She had started in the back of the pack so she was about 2 minutes off of my time.  She had mentioned that her husband, Parker, was running the race also.  Within a mile or so Parker caught up to us and the 3 of us ran together for a majority of the race.  No one else, just us :)

At mile 6.2 they had what they called the Sprintasaurus race, it was a half mile stretch where the fastest runner would win an award.  I thought that was a fun thing to do, you didn't have to run the fastest 13.1 miles to win an award just .50 mile.  I made sure Kelli and Parker knew about the Sprintasaurus and encouraged them to go with how they were feeling, I was going to stay at a steady pace.  Kelli wanted to stay with me but Parker zipped off.

For the first time ever I was pretty much right on pace the whole race...yay me!  The miles clicked by so fast, my pace felt awesome the entire time and I loved every minute of it.  At about mile 10 Kelli started falling behind, I tried encouraging her but could tell she was getting tired.  I had to go on ahead, after all I didn't want to get fired!  Plus, I knew she was a good 2 minutes faster than my time because of our different start times.

I had slowed down a bit hoping that Kelli would catch up so I had some time to make up.  I zipped by a couple of people and then saw Holly coming back to run with me.  When we got to the last little stretch McKenna, Kobe and Kaden ran me in.  I just LOVE having my family at races and I especially love when they run with me :) I finished in 1:44:52, according to Lou my Garmin!

I handed Jake my medal and ran back to find Parker and Kelli.  Parker was right behind me and Kelli was right behind him.  They both did AMAZING, especially considering that this was their first half.  They both got 2nd place in their age division, so awesome!!!  Did I mention that Kelli had a baby 6 months ago, she is awesome!!!

Parker, me (a people McNugget) and Kelli

I was surprised to see Jake volunteering at the finish line, what a gem!!!  He took his job very seriously too.  I wanted to get a picture with Kelli and Parker and had to convince him that it would be okay if he left his station for a minute.  Jake was awesome to help out.  My kids helped too.  They filled cups of water and Powerade and Kobe cut up some bananas.  I had to put a stop to that right quick before he chopped his ding dang hand off.  It was frightening!!

Then we had a little fun... 

Koko and Dino

Oh how I love my cornies!

We busted out our Monica poses

Me and Holly

Our 1st attempt at a jumping picture...we should have stopped there :)

We got Josh to join us for a "jumping" picture but we just look like a bunch weirdos.

Uh oh, that one was even worse :D hahaha, raise the roof!  Maybe we were doing a squat assessment???

We got showered up and headed to the Dinosaur Museum!  We were nearly eaten alive

but don't worry we got away.  It's a good thing I have my water bottle...that looks weird!  Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate!

Lovely family photo! 

I was impersonating the Stegosaurus and got some strange looks.  My leg was supposed to look like my tail...duh!  Okay I'll admit it, I was high...on ENDORPHINS!!

Kobe, Kaden and McKenna...they are special!

We had a great time, the race was AMAZING!!!!

Oh yea, I almost forgot the best part.  I won a pair of Pro Compression marathon socks in our pacer team raffle.  I do so love me some Pro Compression! #keepittight

If this doesn't make any sense or if there are 576,489 grammatical errors please forgive me, I got little sleep last night!