The Rice A Roni Half Marathon!

Ok, so the Rice A Roni Half Marathon does not really exist, but I did run 13.1 miles today with my team and that is the distance of a half marathon. To make it more exciting, our coaches went out of their way to make it like a real race complete with racing bibs and a starting clock.

The run was nice, we started at William Pond Park and ran to the Sunrise bridge in Folsom and back. We had mentors along the way offering "aid" stations with water, Gummy Bears and Pretzels. I ended up running with 2 women I had never run before, and we kept a slow, even pace.

By the end of the run my foot was a little tight so I had to walk a about a half mile straight. But I crossed the "finish line" running and got to proudly wear my bagel medal.

Then I got to join the rest of my teammates for a great pancake breakfast complete with tons of fruit and lots of orange juice. Our honored teammates and their familes joined us to make it a really special event.

I am looking forward to the Angel Island 25k in 2 weeks!

I hate hills!

Ahhhh, at practice they had us do a 3 mile "warm up" and then hill repeats. It was so hot and that hill was steep! Luckily we have some very cool coaches who stood at the bottom of the hill and sprayed us with water. It felt really good for about 1 minute until I started running up the hill again and I was already hot again!

Hiking in Zions National Park

I had to take a week off of official training so that I could have a vacation with my family and my friend Drew. We climbed Mt. Timpanogus in Utah which was very steep and very hot. It was worth it to get to the top and get to take a tour of the cold caves.

The next day Drew and I went to Zion's National Park and hiked the Narrows- which I have always wanted to do! It was amazing! Some day I do want to go back and hike the whole thing. So even though I wasn't running, I was still getting a ton of exercise and I think it was good cross training.