Run, run, run

I participated in my first marathon!!!!!  Relay marathon, that is.  Some of the neighbor gals wanted to get a group together to run the Colfax Marathon Relay this year and somehow I got finagled to join.  I figured that this would be the closest thing to a marathon that I'll ever do and I must say that it was a lot of fun.  There was definitely a lot of time waiting by myself but I love the energy of running a race. 

We left the house around 4:30 to head to Denver.  We dropped off Jenni at her start then headed on out to Sports Authority Field (Invesco Field).  Jenni ran leg #1 (6.4 miles), her sister joined her for leg #2 (3.9).  Julie and Val ran leg #3 (5.6 miles) and #4 (4 miles) and I joined in for leg #5 (6.4 miles).  Jenni and Julie are both training for the Rock n' Roll half and full marathon so they did this race as part of their training.  Val was just crazy to come along for the ride and run 3 legs.

I was just happy to do one leg.  I ran on Wednesday for about 4.5 miles just to see how my legs were but prior to that I hadn't run since March in Moab.  Julie and Val pushed me and I had a PR for a mile-8:24.  I was pretty shocked and proud of myself.  There was a teaser ending that was the ending for a different race that morning which was not funny at all.  We probably had another 600+ feet to go but we were able to sprint to end with our whole group.  Our official time was 4:27:32.  Highlight of running my leg was being able to run through Sports Authority Field.  We didn't run on the actual grass but we ran along the sidelines.  That'll be the closest I ever get to it. 

The weather was perfect for the race.  24 hours prior it was dumping rain and pretty chilly but it was perfect that morning.  I think we ended the race somewhere in the mid to high 60s.  Love these ladies and am so glad that I could be a part of the team!