13.1 miles later... My legs hate me...

The first race of 2011 for me, and my first half-marathon since 2005, was the Salt Lake City Half Marathon.

I was up at 5:30am and out the door by 6am to take a Trax train up to the University of Utah Olympic Legacy Bridge. The run - aka 13.1 miles of hell - started at 7am. My brain wasn't even awake yet when the buzzer went off and thousands of runners started walking. There was no room to run til we all crossed the starting line.

The packed Trax train on the way to the starting line

The Trax train was even packed heading up there. Several of my coworkers who also decided to run the half, full marathon or 5k were late because of the 11,000 participants heading up to the starting line for the race.

I started out a little sore but steady as the route traveled down Foothill Blvd to 2300 East before hitting 2100 South and Sugarhouse. That's where the marathoners split off from the half marathon runners.

We took a different course down 1700 East before reaching Liberty Park at Mile 9. That's where my feet started feeling some pain unfortunately. I kept picking up the pace a few times and setting goals of reaching people ahead of me as motivation.

Ironically enough, I wasn't the only one with that idea. At Mile 11, two girls caught up to me and in the midst of panting and huffing, said I was their inspiration! They had been following me for a while and using me as a goal to reach ha ha.

I decided to stick with them til the end since I had been jamming out to my music on the run and missed talking to people. Albeit while panting. 

Me and a Spartan at the end

The last 2 miles was pretty easy and we kept each other motivated til the end. I finished with a time of 2 hours, 15 minutes - happy just because I hadn't stopped running the entire time. Next time I hope to pick up my pace and finish faster!

And at the end, I found this Spartan from Halo Reach (I think) - Not sure why he was there but I was happy to get my picture with him :D