St George Marathon. OCT 2.

The marathon was awesome! Many thanks to Briton's parents for coming down and watching the girls and also to Heidi for taking Talmage for the weekend. Without your support this would have been impossible.

We crossed the starting line approximately 7 minutes after the horn. This was due to my desire not to get run over by faster runners (approx. 7,000 of them) and both of our evacuation needs that kept us in the porta-potty line. This is the last I saw Briton until the finish line. Sorta romantic to start out together, though, huh?

Favorite sign I saw along the side of the road? "I'd rather be watching conference."

Time elapsed between Briton and my finishing times? 99 minutes (for my pride's sake, assume Briton runs a 2:06 marathon).

Some Race Highlights:
*beautiful sunrise glowing on red rock, a show that only Southern Utah can put on.
*BenGay knee and quad massages at aid stops,
*two timely bags of ice that allayed heat stroke (thanks for the tip, Hed) ... the high that day was 93 degrees.
*For Briton: Snow Canyon and seeing the balloon (or, rather, who it was attached to)
*the finish line. I got all sorts of choked up.
*as always, the spectators and musicians and conversation with other runners
*watching practically all of St. George hobbling around the next morning.
*realizing I wanted to do it again. This was a big deal because usually after a marathon, I hate running.

For more pics of the day/weekend activities, you can check out P&L's blog post here.

Roma Marathon 2011?

If I had $12,000 to spare, what a kick to run the Antarctica Marathon (for a glimpse into the lives of some adventurous folk, check out the profiles of last year's competitors)