Friday night (October 25th) before we went to bed I told Kobe that I would be waking him up at 5 a.m. so he could get ready for the big race. He walked into my room at 4:56 a.m., apparently he was excited!! We got all dressed up and headed out the door at 5:25, hopped in the car with Holly, Jorge and Kaden and headed up to SLC.
On the bus ride Kobe was quiet but super excited. We got up to the starting line at 7, the race didn't start until 9 so we had some time to kill. The weather was pretty much PERFECT. It was cold at the starting line but not freezing like I thought it was going to be. There was a headless horseman at the starting line which I thought was awesome, it was really cool.
These pictures are in no particular order, they are simply here for your enjoyment :)
The race started at 9:00 on the dot. We started back by the 2:10 pacers but Kobe passed them pretty quick. Kobe started the race a bit too fast, I kept trying to get the boy to slow down but that was no easy task. He started to pass the 2:00 pacers which I knew was a mistake but there really was no stopping the boy. At around mile 3.5 I told Kobe that if he didn't slow down he was going to be in big trouble. He finally slowed down and we were doing good until around mile 6 when we decided to make a pit stop. There was a line but I figured it would move fast...WRONG! I don't know what people do in those Honey Buckets, quite frankly I don't want to know, but the line was not moving. Pretty soon we saw Holly and Kaden, they hopped in line too. Finally after we had been stopped for about 6 minutes we gave up and carried on. I think our long stop did Kobe in, his legs were not very happy. I could tell he was struggling but we just kept moving.
I LOOOOOVE IT!!
We stopped again near the Hogle Zoo and took off some layers of clothes, it was getting hot! I was hoping that once we lost some layers it would help the boys but it didn't. Kobe was not wanting to eat but I had to put my foot down and force feed the child ;) I kid, I kid! I gave up on the Shot Blocks and such and went straight for the Skittles, if you haven't tried the Dark Side Skittles do it today, they are the best.
Little running buddies.
There were some pretty nasty hills but overall I LOVED the course. The hills were near mile 8, 9 and 10 (I think) these were rough miles. At mile 11 or so there was a Honey Bucket so we stopped. Again, the line was moving soooooo slow, maybe more than 1 port-a-potty would be good since people like to hang out in there. We were stopped for another 5-7 minutes, seriously?!?
Finish line!
I kept telling the boys to pretend that we had just started our run and that we only had 2 miles left, they can do 2 miles in their sleep. That didn't work. People were amazed at the boys, they kept asking if they were doing the whole race....uh, yea!! People even asked if Kobe was running the race when we were at the starting line, seriously? No, I like to make my smeagoly son stand out in the cold for 2 hours so he can watch his mama start a race ;)
At one point Holly and I started getting a little nutty.
I was flying, check out that cape!
Love the fall leaves
Haunted Half Crew
Aaaaaand they're done! The medals are awesome and even glow in the dark.
My very favorite part of the race was near the end when we got ready to enter the finish line area. There were lots of trees with fallen leaves on the path, beautiful fall colors and then I looked up and saw a ginormous pumpkin face.
How awesome is that?? Pretty dang awesome, if ya ask me!
Kobe kicked it into high gear at the finish line and we sprinted in. Mama and Papa Jex were there cheering us on and McKenna and Jake were handing out medals. We finished and I grabbed Kobe and gave him a big hug, I may have been a little teary! We were starving so we went and grabbed some Little Ceasars pizza which was free for the runners, I never knew Little Ceasars could taste so good. Kobe ate a couple of pieces of pizza and a couple of donuts, I've never seen the boy eat like he did at that very moment.
We loved having Mama and Papa Jex there!!
We hung out with Mama and Papa for awhile and took some pictures. The race finished at Memory Grove Park which is beautiful. It was a great day, I loved the race and I especially loved running with Kobe!!!
Super Heroes!
Kobe's finish time was 2:32, my Garmin time was 2:16, I stopped my watch at our stops. 16 minutes worth of stops is a little cray cray but oh well, we finished and that's all that matters!
Christmas card option #1;)
Man cub and man child
Option #2
And Option#3...wait a minute Jake looks as if he is taking a dump so maybe we shouldn't use this one.
This was an awesome day, I loved every minute of it! I would highly recommend this race.
