Cedar Express

So my husband is a running goo-roo (meaning he loves it) When we got married I decided that even though Layne and I have different hobbies, I wanted to try one of his favorites. Why did I choose to pick up running? I will never know. But I do know that ever since I have been waking up a 6am for a year now to run, I have become addicted!
I love the feeling of running. It honestly does give me the most amazing high :) plus keeps me in good shape!
Today we ran the Cedar City 31 mile express. My first leg was awesome, and even made a personal record of 3.55 miles in 26 minutes, just under 7:30 a mile. I could not believe it. All my hard work paid off!
The format of the race threw me off at first because I had never done a relay before. I did not start at the same time as other people, thus I did not know the fitness levels of the people around me. So I could not use anyone as a pace setter like I usually do. So I had to change up my strategy. It became more of a mental run, which is not my strong suit, but today something changed during those 3.5 miles, and that change lifted me to a personal record! and a really great feeling about what I had accomplished.
The second leg was a little bit of a different story because our team was way far behind, and I was getting frustrated. It is hard not being in control of the race, but it is good to learn to rely on teammates, and recognize all the contributions great or small. It was so much fun running with them! Layne was a good sport and met me at the beginning of my leg (which he had already ran) and ran the whole way with me. SUCH A SWEATIE SWEETIE! I whined a lot of the leg, but finally made it to the finish, and even took 10th overall for that leg :) It felt great!
Before this race I had been beating myself up about the running "wall" that I have been experiencing,but this race proved to me that I was doing better than I thought I was!

All too often (pretty much every day it seems) I get in ruts that seem never-ending. No amount of scripture study, prayer (or running) remedy my problems in a satisfactory way and it just gets to me. Sometimes I even get injured trying to do too much. But every time all the work comes back to me in a moment of truth to testify that it does matter. Even the mundane, monotonous, minutes upon minutes of pounding pavement build on themselves until they stand erect as a monumental achievement.

Here's to a new layer of bricks!

McKenzie

This picture pretty much sums up our marriage. He is always right next to me telling me to keep going! he is such an inspiration to me!