Comment on the Hobble Creek Half......

Well the day finally came to run the Hobble Creek Half. It's something I've wanted to do for awhile. I planned on doing it in 2006 with my seester, but our entry fees were lost and they had no record of us putting in for the race, so that didn't happen. Last year I didn't want to deal with training AND a new job and moving and all that jazz, so this year seemed like a good time to do it.

So I conned Steff into doing it with me. And by con I mean I said hey Steff, let's do this, we can get a free t-shirt AND say we did a half marathon. Steff took a couple of days to think about it and then let me know she was in. We got registered on the first day of registration which apparently was amazing because the dudes at the running stores we went to were all shocked that we got in-apparently it's hard to do. But whatever-we were on our way.



I began training back in May or June, I can't remember. I'd been running 5 miles 3-4 times a week so I figured it would be no big deal. I did pretty good until July 24th when I ran 10 miles, after that I hit a training wall and I was seriously over it. I pretty much ditched the training program after that. Something I won't do again I'll tell you that much. I ran with Steff a few times after that but mostly it was painful just to get 3-4 miles in.

Anyway the day of the race drew near. I had my new shoes all broken in thanks to Wasatch Running Company (they were fantastic), my gummy energy shots and my new waist-water-holder thinger. The one glitch in the plan came when we found out that headphones were banned. That pretty much ticked me off but we didn't want to chance losing our Ipods, so we went without them. Of course there were people who used them anyway but whatever-we were rule followers. I'm sure we'll be blessed in heaven or something.

Friday afternoon of the race (August 22nd if you will) Steff and I (and Lisa our faithful helper/photographer/person we dragged out running with us on all of our vacays) went to Runner's Corner in Orem to get our packets. We were seriously surprised to find that we were numbers 344 & 345. That's so great!


We had a pre-race dinner at CPK-salads and a chicken bbq pizza on whole wheat crust. So good! I spent the night at Steff's house. We both got really nervous when Lisa left-we realized that there was no turning back and we were really going to do this. We were both trying to just think of this as a run in the mountains, we just wished we didn't have to get up and catch a bus to do it. Before I went to bed I was reading a book and I came acrossed this paragraph-which made me laugh-it totally described how we were feeling:

"The New York City Marathon was fun, it was interesting, and it was a unique new challenge for me, but it was very time-consuming to train for. I don't mind running every day, but I'm not sure about the whole business of riding from the finish line to the start on a bus, then jogging around with thirty-five thousand other people waiting for the gun to go off. I'd rather just go running on my own and have a quiet sixty minutes out somewhere on the road." Ed Viesturs from No Shortcuts To The Top

Anyway we got up at 4:30 and we were on the road by 5, following a long stream of cars to Mapleton City Park where we caught the bus up the canyon. We had a very helpful slightly obnoxious girl sitting in front of us who talked the whole way up the canyon-no big deal. Anyway we got dropped off and went to the bathroom and then hung around for 45 minutes waiting for the race to start. We talked with a few people Steff new, and then we situated ourselves in the back of the pack with the slow runners-we knew where we belonged. Actually, I was a slow runner, Steff's pretty fast.

Anyway the gun went off at 7:30 and it was great. I was all over it for the first 6.5 miles, then I hit a wall and ended up running/walking the rest of it. It wasn't bad to run without the Ipod, in fact it was kind of enjoyable. People who were camping in the canyon came out and cheered us on which was really fun. I gave some kids high-fives. I was really good with the positive self-talk until mile 10 when I really just wanted to die, and I was thinking that I wouldn't ever make it to the end. But finally I got back to the park and Lisa and Em were there snapping pictures. I kind of got teary-eyed, or I would have had I had any liquid left in my body to make tears. I yelled out where is the finish line-I couldn't see it! Turns out I had to run around a building on some grass to get there. As I rounded the corner Steff (who had finished way before me) came out and ran the last hundred yards with me-that was so great! then I crossed the finish line-in less than 3 hours (barely) :o). But at least I finished. I got the all-important t-shirt and some much needed water. We took some pictures and limped (literally) back to my car. Trish and RJ and Em and Lisa met us at Gandolfo's in Springville for sandwiches-the best tasting sandwiches ever. Then I took Steff home, got my stuff and went home and took a much needed bath. I spent the rest of the day lounging on the couch watching Bones and icing my knee. Steff came up for a celebratory dinner at Johnny Carino's and Lisa and I made it to Stake Conference that night. Good times.



So right after the race I was saying I'd never do it again. Ever. It was painful. But by the time I got home I decided I would-I want to do a better time. So I'm thinking Hobble Creek again next year-maybe with Marie (I saw your comment on facebook!) and/or the Provo half marathon-taking it back to my roots. I will do things differently next year-like actually follow through with the complete training program and maybe not gain weight during training. Just a thought-but all in all I'm glad I did it-and I'm really glad Steff did it with me-it was a bonding experience!