The Top Of Utah Half Marathon

Several months ago now I was challenged to a half marathon. Ten weeks ago I started training for that challenge. Saturday I finished that challenge at the Top of Utah Half Marathon.
It has been years since I have felt as much adrenaline as I felt this past week. It is amazing I had any adrenaline left for Saturday. Friday morning I woke up with race day on my mind. I at one point had planned on working all day, but earlier in the week I realized that I would probably be better off only working half a day. It was a good decision, because traffic was not fun and my nerves would have been very raw had I waited until later to leave Salt Lake. So, all in all leaving early probably saved my family from my nervous rants about Utah drivers.
First thing we did in Logan, after taking a scenic byway, i.e a shortcut that probably wasn't so short, we stopped in at the park in Providence where Saturdays adventure would begin and end. I was extremely impressed with the ease of picking up our packet. I did not have to wait in line for more than 5 minutes. The organization was extremely impressive. It was obvious I was not at the DMV.
Once I had my packet in hand we made a brief stop in at the local Subway to meet up with Amy and Joe before heading over to the Super 8 to check in for the evening. All the butterflies that had been flying around in my stomach all day had made me a little bit drowsy, so it didn't take me too long to get settled in and ready for bed. With the alarm set for 4:15 I was out like a light.
Sleep came quickly and left just about as quickly. I woke up at just past midnight, and then again at 1:57 at that point the best I could do is try and relax with my eyes closed. My mind was so wired I couldn't shut it down, not to mention the fear that I might not hear my alarm, which bytheway was set to only go off on weekdays, so that only confirmed my fears for the next time I set my alarm, ugh....
Anyways Race day was hear and I was up and ready and boarded the shuttle which took us to the park to where I met up with Amy and Joe and boarded the shuttle that would take us 13.1 miles away to drop us off at the starting line. The ride up you could feel the energy of all the runners. Each one had their own story. Several that I talked to this was their first half, others had run marathons. I was amazed at the many assorted body shapes that where there, some of which I was thinking, if I weighed what they weighed there is no way I could have walked that distance yet alone run.

Once we got to Hyrum Park where the starting line was there were people standing around talking and a lot of nervous energy which my body kept interpreting as the need to stretch. I was extremely concerned about my hip flexers, which have been giving me a problem ever since that 12 miler. So I stretched a little here and there as we waited for our opportunity to start the race.

We started toward the back of the line as they had it organized according to your own predicted finish time. We actually started further back than our goal time, my goal happened to be 2 hours 15 minutes. Our strategy proved to probably be such a good move because the first part of the race we ended up running side ways a lot passing people who would finish well behind us. But Amy and I wanted to stick with Joe as long as we could. Joe was having some problems with his Achilles tendon so we knew at some point he was going to fall behind. The real question was whether my hip flexers would give me problems. I hoped that the cool down week might be enough to allow them to heal enough to not give me fits. At the beginning of the race I was not so sure. They still seemed a bit tight. So, I did my best to stretch them while waiting for the starting gun to go off.
First shot must have been a call to attention because it seemed no one had moved. about a minute later a second shot went off and the race had begun. The fastest runners lead off then the sea of humanity that was the rest of us followed. The first 3 miles went pretty slow due to the crowd and weaving in and out of traffic. I had been warned before hand not to give it everything up front which I had no intention of doing anyways. It was interesting to see how many walkers we already had past. I was already beginning to regret how much I had drunk before the race and I thought I might have to stop at the portable johns at the 3 mile marker, but as we passed them there was a line and I decided I would sweat it out, which I literally did. I sweated profusely. As we passed the 3 miles we re-hydrated and were off.
Between miles 4 and 6 there were a lot of people slowing down and spreading out. This section also had some of the longer more down hill portions of the race. It was a lot of fun passing people who by looking at them I would have thought they were more fit than myself. It was fun listening in on the conversations, well I should say most of the conversations that were going on. By the end of the 6 miles I was in my rhythm for the most part, but I knew that we were about to go through the toughest portion of the race for myself anyways.
Miles 7-9 was through a winding section of a beautiful country neighborhood. It was pretty flat, but when we had run through this area a couple of weeks ago I struggled. I kept thinking we would be done just around the corner, but every corner had another corner we had to pass. It was miserable. During the race I mentally prepared myself for this section. It was extremely helpful to have people cheering us on as we left the canyon and continued down the winding neighborhood. A couple of families along the way cheered us on and I borrowed their energy giving them high fives along the way. At about mile 8 Amy asked if I was having a hard time keeping a pace. I guess she noticed. It was my mental battle at that point. once I passed the 9 mile mark I was back on pace and felt good.

Miles 10-11 were a mixed bag of slightly down hill to about a mile plus some of uphill. I handled the uphill pretty good, but somewhere after the 11 mile mark I lost Amy. It was somewhere at about the 12 mile mark that reached the top and headed down toward the finish line that my mind started playing games with me. I started thinking, "what the heck am I doing this for." I temporarily slowed to a walk for about 5 paces then started jogging again. I did this a couple of times before I realized I could have done the whole race without walking at all. The final mile I started to pick my pace back up and as I saw the finish line coming I saw DeeAnn, Matthew, Spencer, and Shandi my niece all cheering me on. Spence saw that I was bleeding I had not noticed it but apparently my body glide had not been applied thick enough on one side of my chest and the chaffing had caused me to bleed pretty good. For the final 25-30 yards I sprinted through the finish line it read something of 2:18:41. However, for my personal time which means the time my reader crossed the starting line to the time my reader crossed the finish line was 2:15:59.8. Amy followed me across probably less than 1 minute behind.

After drinking what seemed like a gallon of Gatorade and water we headed back up the course away to cheer Joe on to the finish line. What an incredible feeling it was to be able to cheer others on after our race was done.  This experience I have to say is a do-over. It is an experience I will remember for a long time.  And I intend to make this just one more adventure in Moving More.....

You Have to Experience The Truth To Know It

The other day my family went to the park to play catch with a football. My wife  payed attention as I  taught the boys how to throw the ball. After throwing the ball perfectly a couple of times she said, "You know, it feels good when you throw it right." And that is exactly the way it feels when we act in the truth, it feels right and it will show.

The only way we can truly know the truth is by experiencing the truth. Until we know the truth it will simply just be one more theory that may or may not be true. Christ said to prove his words, do what he says and we can know if it came from the Father.
Education is important. However, learning how to think is much more important than learning what to think. The challenge faced by those trying to get an education nowadays is that many professors have become arrogant and prideful and are not interested in teaching their students how to think, but are more interested in teaching them what to think. The theories they teach are taught as fact, yet in 10 years those truths will be replaced by "new truths." Not that we can not benefit from those theories, but if we are not careful we can be sucked in to the idea that education comes by feeding the ego of our professors, rather than using our professors knowledge to surpass them.
I believe that it is our responsibility to question God. If we should question God then we should definitely question those who think they know more than God. The most important principle in education today seems to be to question everything including your beliefs. But I say the most important principle in education is to learn how to listen for the answers to your questions. 

Don't Give Up On Yourself

Sometimes we have to realize we are, and we are not alike. Each of us are individuals and we have to come to the conclusion that just because someone else can, does not mean that we can...yet. There is no reason to give up on ourselves if someone else is faster than us, better than us, or more graceful than us. When we start something we have never done before we have to assume that we are going to run into problems we have never dealt with before. Life is just that way. We rarely are graceful when we start doing exercise, but the more we do the better we get at it. I can't tell you how many times I have done different move mores where I felt like the ugly duckling bowing before swans. I wish I would have recorded my first attempts... Well, maybe not, but it probably would have given encouragement to many. I will just say that coordination is still not one of my strengths, but I just keep moving more and enjoying it.

The Logan Run

Last Saturday we drove to Logan to run the first 9 miles of the 1/2 marathon. Amy, Joe, Joe's Dad Norm, and myself were driven up to the top of the course by DeeAnn and my family. We planned it out that DeeAnn would meet us along the way, as we have become accustom to the past few weeks.
I felt really good starting off, but this week after visiting the Chiropractors instead of my hip hurting in the back of the joint, it was the front of my hip that seemed a bit tight. I kept a pretty good pace through the canyon, it really helped to have my family cheering us on. Matt would hand me my water then say, "Go, go, go, daddy. Hurry up. You are doing Great!" That kept me going through mile 6, but as we hit the winding country road we leveled off and my hip started causing me problems. The problem with my hip doesn't seem to be the pain directly, I think I could push through the pain, but it seems to just wear on my nerves and weaken the ability of my muscles to respond to my demands. The fatigue factor just kills me. I made it 9 miles which was our scheduled run, but I came up short about 200 yards from the location we had chosen to meet. I walked about 50 yards and sprinted the last 70 yards or so.
The competitor in me finds it mentally challenging when my body does not allow my mind the opportunity to finish. I have to remind myself that I new that I would be testing my limits from the get go so I have found my limits when I am not at 100%. Hopefully by the time of the race my body will have had enough time to heal and I can see if I can reach a new limit.
One more adventure in Moving More. 

Humility Brings Peace of Mind

There is nothing more frustrating than trying to teach someone how to avoid the consequences that you have already learned about from sad experience. Then to have them say, "I know, I know..." then proceed to do exactly, exactly what you did until you humbled yourself.

Humility, can save us heartache and pain if we allow it to work within us. We were not sent into mortality to figure everything out on our own. God gave us parents to show us an example of how or how not to do things. If you see your parents are not happy then you should investigate exactly what it might be that makes them not happy. I can guarantee that humility will not be on the list of things that do not make them happy.

When I say humility, I do not subscribe to the woeful countenance, self depreciating, and depressing brand of humility. I subscribe to the willingness to admit what you do not know, willingness to admit what you do know, and understanding who you are as a child of God brand of humility. You do not have to denigrate yourself in order to appear humble. When we are more concerned about looking humble we often lose true humility. The desire to appear is born of a fear and of vanity, and vanity is born of pride. Pride is the opposite of humility.

When you lack humility it is a sign of insecurity. Insecurity leads to fear and fear leads to the dark side... When you get rid of those insecurities you do not have to fear what you do not know, but you find peace in learning what you do not know.  

You Would Think I Might Learn...And I Do..

This past week was our biggest week for preparing for the half marathon. It culminated in our 12 mile run. Our Saturday runs are becoming quite the adventure and each week seems to be a learning experience in and of itself. I was told once that insanity is doing the same dumb thing over and over again. Well, no one can accuse me of that, because I am really good and doing dumb thing after another. Okay, so dumb may be a little harsh, but given the task to choose a route to run I felt a little dumb after choosing 2 routes that about killed me. Amy and Reyna certainly out ran me on this run that is for sure. In my defense I was running sick, I didn't realize it at the time, but once I came home the little bug made itself clear...

After last weeks fun run Amy decided she did not want to think about the 12 mile rout so she gave me the opportunity to create it. I found 2 that seemed acceptable. Presented with the options we chose the more adventurous of the two. According to my calculations and my ability to read maps the total loss in elevation would be somewhere in the neighborhood of  700 plus feet. which would be pretty close to the 1/2 marathon so I was excited. This could be a good preview of what we would see for the 1/2.

Well, that morning we got up early. DeeAnn and I drove over to Amy's house where we picked up Amy and Reyna and headed toward Dimple Dell. It seemed like the longest drive up to the top, but we made it. The past couple of days my lower back was feeling a little tight but I thought I could stretch it out and where it hadn't gone down into my hip I felt I would be okay for this run. Right up front we dropped significantly but it mellowed out shortly and everything seemed like it would be good. Our first 3 miles went good we finished it in good time and DeeAnn had liquid refreshments waiting for us. Did I mention how incredible my wife is? Well, she is pretty incredible.
Then came miles 4-6 what I thought would be a small rise then fall turned into an almost 800 foot climb. We actually did this without much trouble at all. Good thing it was not at the end of the run. However, my back was still nagging at me just a little. We reached the 6 mile mark and DeeAnn once again sent us off with a refill of liquids.
Miles 7-9 I began to feel the pain in my back move to my hip, but I did not think it was too bad I was able to keep up, but it was not super comfortable. As we left DeeAnn for the final leg of the run I felt my hip start to wear on me. I made it to mile 11 when I had little left in me and when we hit the final hill on the last 1/2 mile of the run my hip said no more. I had to walk for about 25 yards before I could muster up a limping jog under the gentle encouragement of Amy. I finally made it to the top of the hill and was able to grin and bare it to the finish.

The lessons I learned this week were, even though the over all course was down hill we still had ups and downs along the way some of which were more significant than others. Such is life. Second, I learned that if you give it your all it doesn't matter how ugly the finish it just matters that you finish. Life is not always about beating your competitors, sometimes it is, but most of the time life is about beating yourself. I also learned that you can never underestimate the significance of an encouraging word when you feel you have nothing left inside. DeeAnn gave it to us along the way, and Amy and Reyna did that for me at the end of the run.

Just one more adventure in moving more. :)

Honey Wheat Oat Bread

Sometimes I get the hankering to create my own recipes. I usually go for a search on the internet and browse sites gleaning the principles of the recipes that I find interesting, then I start with a basic recipe and adjust different ingredients until it works. I like a simple base to work off such as this recipe. I will then experiment with things like adding basil or maybe even cheese. I might add cinnamon or whatever, but now that I have my base to work off of I can have fun. I hope you enjoy. I know that we certainly have.

2 Cups Warm Water
2 TBS Yeast
3/4 TBS Salt
1/4 Cup Honey
1/4 Cup Oil.
3 Cups Wheat Flour
1 Cup White Flour
1 1/2 Cups Oat Flour
2 TBS of dough enhancer

Sprinkle Yeast on top of Warm Water and let stand for 5 to 10 minutes. If the yeast has fallen to the bottom of the water and seems not to be growing I like sprinkling a small pinch of brown sugar around. It is kinda fun watching the yeast start to fizz and rise to the top of the water.
After the yeast is activated I add the oil, honey, and salt. I like to put the oil and honey in the same container, oil first then honey, it make the honey come out easier. After that the dough enhancer and flours. I knead the dough in the machine for 10 minutes then divide it in two and form them into loaves and put them in greased loaf pans and let them rise til the double in size. Preheat oven to 350 degrees while you are waiting for the dough to rise. Then bake in oven for about 30 minutes or until the bread is browned and sounds hollow. If you like your crust soft, like I do, then I spread butter over the top.

Note: Oat flour= uncooked oatmeal run through the blender.

Sometimes It Pays To Be The Fool

Sometimes it pays to be foolish. You see it is often the fool, those who don't know that they can't, that make things happen. This week I played the fool.

In the process of training for this 1/2 marathon Amy and I realized that the course would be a downhill course. We needed to prepare for down hill, because to this point we had only trained on level to slightly uphill courses. So, I had this brilliant idea that we should run down Millcreek Canyon. The course was set from the top of Millcreek Canyon to 2300 East and 3900 South in Salt Lake City, UT. This we thought would give us an idea of what we were facing come the half marathon. So, DeeAnn drove Amy and I up to the top of Millcreek Canyon Saturday morning. I tried not to pay too much attention to how steep it was on the way up and figured that if Amy was willing to do this I most certainly was not going to let her show me up. So, when DeeAnn left the parking lot to meet us half way down the canyon we finished stretching and started down the canyon road. Immediately, I started feeling a slight cramp under my ribs, probably the effects of my diet while camping all week. This is not new though, I always seem to have to fight those thoughts as I run. We hit a couple of fairly steep stretches and I began to think that this course was much steeper than I thought it was going to be. It only took us a little less than 30 minutes to reach DeeAnn at the 4.8 mile mark. By that time I was feeling my calves really getting tight, but after a quick drink of water, we kept going. We had only passed one other person who was running up the canyon, but we had not seen anyone running down it. For all the bikes we saw I thought maybe we would see others running down, but no, we didn't. Eventually we saw a few walking up and a couple jogging up, but never anyone running down.

Once we got to the bottom of the canyon we still had about 3-4 miles to go. my calves were on fire and I noticed that my feet were feeling hot as well. I kept thinking that Amy might stop and give me an excuse to stop and make sure she was okay ;), but she just kept moving, and I certainly wasn't going to stop. As we rounded our final turn to head down 3900 South to 2300 South I felt like I was having a hard time picking my legs up, but I was determined to keep up. I was really hoping it was the first light I saw, but I prepared mentally for the second. And it was a good thing I did because it was the second light, but as we approached that second light I found out it was just past that light. Thank goodness we did not have to wait, because mentally I was now completely spent. I mustered up enough to finish with an attempt at a sprint for the last 20 yards or so. It felt good to do what we had done, but I knew I was going to pay a price.

That afternoon, I found out that we had run 11.9 miles and dropped 3406 feet in elevation almost 4 times as big a drop as we will be dropping during the 1/2 marathon.

It was foolish to think we could run that course with our experience, but not knowing that we shouldn't gave us the opportunity to say we did it. And now we know that we can do more than we thought we could, because we did not know what we were doing before we did it. Set your site on a task and forget about the obstacles, everything will turn out fine. You may pay a price, but once the price is paid you may look back and say, "I did that. Now lets not do that again." Or you may just think next time.... and smile a little bigger.

Yes sir, it is often the fool that pushes the envelope and creates new boundaries for themselves and others....Try it sometime you just might like it...after you pay the price. ;)

A new adventure in Moving More. Don't tell me you can't until you have tried. Until then you can only say you won't.