New Medal Decor

 I was noticing that my medal hooks were getting a little overflowing so I found a new one that I really liked, and brought it into the fold. I needed some help to get it onto the wall, got the medals distributed, and then stepped back to enjoy how it look. Love it.

I decided to make the new one just Disney, with bibs on it and it looks so nice.

Provo City 5K 2017

Today is the 10th anniversary of the Provo City Marathon/5k! I think I've run it for like, 6 years now? I'm not sure, but something along those lines. This morning I was feeling really sick before the race, I was actually afraid of not running it, but after a banana and a prayer, I felt better. I got to the race with a few minutes to spare, and felt all right. Then the gun went off, and so did I.

I finished with a time faster than last year - 24:41! Holy! I was so proud! I crossed the finish line, got my breathing under control, and checked the race times. I got 3rd place in my age group! Yaaaaay! I went back and found PJ making her way over, and then we hung around and waited for the medal ceremony to start. I got a pretty sweet medal, and I was so proud of myself!

The medal is so giant this year! I'm just so happy that I did pretty well, and that I had a good race!

Lindon Days

You guys! Today was Lindon Days, which I sadly had to miss last year, but this year, got to run. There was a whopping 50 people in the race this year, it was just so tiny! I wondered why so few, but I have no idea. Anyway. I was on the way to the race, about halfway there, when I realized that I had left my bib at home. Doh! I quickly hurried back and got it, and made it on time. I took off when the race started, trying my hardest. And then, as we approached this street we were supposed to go straight on, the people in the beginning turned. I didn't know what else to do, so I just followed the crowd. Turns out, they had accidentally cut out a half mile of the race, turning too early like that. I feel like a little of the fault could be put on the shoulders of the race people, they really should have marked the race better, and I also place blame on the people who were in front, they had told us not to turn there, and then they did. Oh well.

Anyway! So I did the race and ran my hardest and finished my 2.68 mile run in 21:45, nice. And then to make it better, I got first in my age group! I was also #15 overall, with the first 8 or so being high school kids on their school teams, so I feel good about myself. Of course I got a sweet medal.

Aw yiss, a gold medal for myself. And PJ was running the race, and she got second place!

We are both hecka champions, good for us!

I win!

Today was the Springville City 5K, my favorite race of the year. I have been training this year, trying to improve my times, and so when it was time for the race, I was nervous and excited. I lined up with everyone else, and then took off. I kept a pretty good pace, feeling all right about it. During the race, at about mile 2, I was close (ok, too close) behind a small girl. She all of a sudden stopped, and I had nowhere to go, so I just put my hands on her side while saying "no no no no no" and then sort of unceremoniously dumped her to the side of the road. It's not my fault! I had nowhere to go! She stopped with no notice! But I finished the race, and shortly after that, I got a text from the race, saying I had won third place in my age group! I was so surprised!

So when I got my swank medal, I was pretty jazzed. Of course, I won nothing in the raffle, but I've come to expect that. And now I look forward to my next race!

Second place!

Yesterday was the Provo City 5K. I was looking forward to this one, this is one of my favorite races of the year! I felt pretty good about the race as I was going, it felt like I wasn't dying. When I finished, I looked at my time, 25:13, and found that I finished in first place! Then, after a little time, I found that I was in second place - the first place in my age group was third overall, (I never would have beat her) so she wasn't counted at first. After waiting for about an hour in the cold and rain, I got my medal!

I feel pretty good about this medal - getting any medal is fine with me, so I don't even care what place it was. After the race, we walked the 3 miles back to the car and while it was cold and rainy, it was pretty fun, and I'm totally looking forward to next years race! 

Provo City 5K 2015

All right, all right, race season starts today! I kind of decided last minute that I would do this race, and registered the night before. I thought I had registered earlier, but then apparently, that’s not what happened. I got to the race the morning of, and it felt good. Kind of warm, but I wasn’t expecting to do amazing things, just wanted to survive. As the gun shooting kicked us off, I tried to go as fast as I could, without dying. I made it through the first two miles pretty good, I was feeling awesome. And then, randomly, my body decided during the third mile that it was time to give up on life. I slowed down a little, and then my legs burned as I crossed the finish line. I didn’t finish faster than the Mayor of Provo (The real race name is Chase the Mayor 5K, but it’s so hard to beat him, he’s so fast!), so I figured I did poorly, but I felt pretty good anyway. They had a line where we could print off our results, and after waiting in that line, I found out…

I had gotten 2nd place in my age group! I got a medal!

I couldn’t have been more surprised. And then I looked at the whole results  and I was 1 minute away from being first place! 1 minute! Oh man, I was angry at myself, but that’s ok. 2nd place is not the worst, and now, race season is underway!

A First Place!

Today, I had a race for the first time in a while, which was fun. It was the Lindon City 5k – a favorite race by all! I had a bit of a stomach ache that morning, unfortunate, but nothing’s gonna keep me from this race! So, off we went, and I ran, and I struggled with the stomach, and I felt like throwing up the whole last mile, but I just kept going. I finished, and waited around until they started to post results, and I saw:

I had gotten first! Oh my gosh! I was very surprised at this. I got a sweet, sweet medal,

And I felt pretty good about myself. I celebrated with a small shimmy, a bottle of water, and later, some pie.

Springville Art City Days 2013

This year, the Art City 5k happened to be on the same day as the funeral. So, because the race was so early, I did the race really quickly, then came home, didn’t stay for the awards or the drawing or anything. Later, I was told that I did actually win something, which I really didn’t expect, because there were a billion people in front of me when I finished. So this is the medal, for being third in my age group, I got it today, just a week later. I think I finished in 25:50something, I can’t remember exactly.

Apparently, the first place one was gold, the second silver, and this bronze for third. I was really happy to get this, especially when I really didn’t think I would get anything at all. But now, I’ll be in the next age group up next race, and I can’t tell if that’ll be a good thing or a bad thing. I’ll wait and see!

A Good Day for a 5K.

Yesterday was the Provo City Marathon/Half Marathon/5k. Having just done the SLC half, I opted to do the 5k for this one. The race started pretty late (well, for race standards) at 9:00. PJ and I rolled into the race at about 8:45, and getting my race packet, and affixing my number to myself, I waited around for it to get started. At the Provo race, they have a thing where the mayor of the city does this race, and he starts 1 minute earlier than the rest of us, and if you beat the mayor, you get a sticker for it. I’ve never been able to do this. I think one year, I was close, but he was definitely ahead of me. I’ve been feeling no good going into this race. Not like, sick or anything, but I feel like my running has slacked off this winter, because I’ve been lazy, and I’ve been running shorter distances all season, and at slower paces, so I went into this knowing I would struggle. We all lined up, and after the mayor took off, the gun went off.

I took off at a pretty good pace, not too fast, but not a slower one. After a few minutes, the people did what they usually do, and we all thin out, we don’t run right next to each other. I do this thing in races, I pick out someone a little bit ahead of me, and I want to beat them. So, I keep them in my head, and if I happen to pass them, I pick someone else. There was a girl that I had run passed, and after a few minutes, she passed me again. and went a bit in front of me. I still had her in my mind as someone I wanted to pass, but I was just right behind her. We were almost side to side. I got to the second mile, and in my brain, I went, ok, there’s just one mile left, so I can give it all I’ve got, and then that’s it, I’ll spend the day recovering from it. So I took off, and left the girl behind, and finally, there was the finish line, and I went as fast as I could at this point, and crossed the finish line. When I got there, they cut off my chip, and handed me a slip of paper. I got to the water, took a cup, and then looked at the paper they gave me:

I beat the mayor! I didn’t expect that to happen at all! I waited a few minutes, then PJ crossed the line, and we cooled down. After a couple of minutes, they posted the race results, and I went to look at how I did. And…I was third in my age group! I couldn’t believe it, I was so psyched. So, after a loooong time of waiting (seriously, it was an hour) finally, they had an “awards ceremony” (really, just a guy standing by a table shouting names) and I got one!

Huzzah! I was really psyched for this, because I was just so doubtful, and I thought I had no chance. I’m going to step up my running again, I need to get back to the fitness level I was at last year, but at least now I know I’m not as far back as I thought, and that makes me feel pretty good.

A Medal, A Medal

Well kids, today was the Lindon City Days Dash yet again. This was my third year of running it. I love this race, because it’s so small that it’s not crazy, there aren’t a billion people here, and generally, the atmosphere seems so chill. PJ & I showed up at the right time (take that, Freedom Run!) and just hung out until the race started.

It started, and I won’t lie, I struggled. I thought I could do this with  no problems, but apparently, by body just wanted to quit. I did the first mile ok, but then, I seemed to start to shut down. I tried to keep my pace, and run, but people kept passing me. As people (Ok, the women) were passing me, I tried to gauge their age as they were by me. I’ve won first place in my age group (25-29) for the last two years that I’ve run this race, and I wanted to keep it going. So, the few women that passed me, I judged that they were older than I. I kept going, and then, when I was about a half a mile from the end, another passed me. As she did so, I looked over and I thought, for sure, that she was my age. I then tried my hardest to stay with her, and I did pretty good. As we rounded the last corner before the finish line, I tried to surge ahead. Which worked for about, oh, 1 minute, before my body was like, ‘yeah, nice try’ and then I slowed down a touch. She super passed me, and ended up beating me by about 20 seconds. So I finish, turn in my tag, and wait around, for PJ, then we stretch, etc.

As we were doing a cool down walk-around the parking lot, we see the race organizers putting all the race tags onto pieces of paper. I scootched closer, and see that the “Womens 25-29” is still empty – they hadn’t filled it yet! So, I just sort of…hung out until they put a tag on there. I would walk around, sneak a peek, and continue walking, until I saw them put a tag on there, then I leeeeeaned in to get a look at it, and…IT WAS ME! I screamed a little and did a dance of joy as I walked away from the table so that they wouldn’t know I had seen. (I don’t know if it was legal for me to peek!) Then, they were giving away the awards, and ta-daaa I got a medal! Here’s me, putting it on:

And here’s me holding my prize. Addition to the medal, I got 2 day passes to Lindon City Pool! I have since lost these. I remember myself putting them in to my car, but now I can’t find them. I’m still looking.

 

Oh! Also, PJ was the second fastest in our age group! I thought that was pretty cool, we are champs. I wish she had gotten a medal too. Anyway, after we waited for the rest of the “ceremony”, we left, and took this picture on the way to the car.

What a fun day, and a fun race, even though my body was rejecting the very notion of running.

Medaled

Ok, peeps. I had another race this past weekend. It was, (and I know you’ll be impressed by this) the Lindon City Days Dash – a 5K. Last year, I did this race pretty quickly, I won my age group. I was so psyched when it came around again, of course I entered. This time, I was hoping to get the same result, but since I’m no longer as fast as I used to be, (because lately, I’m in like, a runners funk. I don’t know what its about, but I just don’t want to get up and run. And when I run, I’m just so lazy, I run slower than I used to. Oh well.) I didn’t know that it would happen, but at least I’d give it a go.

So we (PJ and I) show up at the race at the appropriate time, to get our race packets and pin our race numbers to our shirts. The race was a totally different course than I thought it would be. Its always fun to try a new course, but I like having the same one, because then you know just when it’s going to go uphill, and when you have to push yourself and when you can hold back. So I was going into this blind, but confident. The countdown began, and when it was time to go, off I went.

I did ok. I went pretty fast right off, and was doing pretty good, until about mile 2, and then, I slowed a bit. I was getting a little tired, and my body isn’t used to racing 5K’s right now, the last few I’ve done have been 10K’s. But I held in. I kept going. I did the best I could, and then when I was nearing the end, the course went uphill. That’s right, one of the fewest races in the entire world where you run UP to get to the end. As if we’re not already dying by the time we get to the end, we had to finish by running uphill. But I soldiered through it (probably slowed right down) and then finally finished. After a post-race cool down (complete with blue Powerade and a slice of bread from Kneaders) we sat down and waited for the “awards ceremony” to get going. As they’re passing things out, I realized, I actually wasn’t that fast. Hearing the times of people, I was like, shoot. I did my best, but I guess it wasn’t fast enough. So then they get to my age group, and they say the fastest time was me! I was so surprised, I shouted and screamed, and jumped up to get my medal. I meant to take a picture of it, but I only got this one of me and PJ (how attractive do we look in this?!) so here’s a half picture of the medal.

So there it is. My medal for being fastest in my age group (25-29). I am a little proud of myself, so I want to share this with the world. This is the only race I ever get medals in, because the race is small and there aren’t many participants. But I’ll forget all that when I celebrate my victory.

Oh, BTW, the shirt that I’m wearing here is a hamburger, and underneath him is the saying “Runners have the best buns” and I thought it was magnificent. And then the little burger is saying “Tasty!” so I thought that was even better.