Two weeks after the Jackson Hole Half, I ran the American Fork Canyon Half Marathon. It continues to be my favorite race! I love that it is very familiar territory and basically runs right in my backyard. This was my 9th half marathon, and I decided a long time ago that I was really going to train hard for this race and go all out in trying to beat my best time. My previous best was 1:51 on this same course two years ago, and I remembered how hard I felt like it was to get.
I stayed diligent and did a lot of solo speed training and really tried to push myself. I thought I had a good chance of beating my time, but was still a bit nervous. I feel like you never really know until race day.
Showing off his new running shirt for the kids run at packet pick up:
At race start with my friends Holly, Savannah, and Emily, who were also running.
The weather was perfect and I was so glad!
I always place myself near the front at the beginning. I hate dodging people and I would rather they have to run around me! From the very beginning I felt really good. I kept thinking I was going to hit a wall, but somehow I just never did. I think I was so excited to finally actually be running it and just hoping my hard work would pay off.
I knew I needed to keep my pace up during the first 6 miles that are in the canyon if I wanted to beat my time. My goal was 7:30/min miles in the canyon and I was able to do it. I figured my quads would be pretty trashed after that and was just hoping I could still run fast enough for the rest of the race. I still felt great after coming out of the canyon and was able to keep my pace quite a bit faster than I anticipated. I was fairly confident at this point that I would beat my best, but I had no idea by how much. I was thinking maybe a couple minutes. I was watching my average pace on my Garmin, and when I was a mile or two away from the finish, I noticed my average was about a 7:54/mile. Once I saw that I was determined to stay below 8:00/mile.
I felt so good crossing that finish line! I looked down at my watch and when I saw it was 1:43 I about died! I was so excited. I NEVER thought I'd beat my time by 8 minutes. I was relieved the hard work had paid off.
Seeing my family at the finish is always my favorite part.
I'm proud of this medal!
My friend Krista and her daughter came to the finish line and Presley even made me this sign. I thought it was so cute!
Our boys love running in the kids run, and all three of them did it this year! They looked so cute in their race shirts and they all did an awesome job. I ran with Davis's group and he ran the entire way and was saying the cutest things like, "Mom, I'm in first place!," (he wasn't), and "Mom, I'm winning the race!"
All of us with our medals
It was too dark for me to see when I left for the race, but I came home to these awesome chalk messages on my driveway from my friend.
I saved these signs the boys made for me. I think they are the sweetest. The top one is from Jackson and the bottom from Bo. If we ever get our basement finished, I'm hanging them in our exercise room.
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