Ogden Marathon Recap

This recap will be almost all in pictures.  

I don't have much to say.

It rained from mile 2 to 26.2.  A lot.

It was freezing.

I wore my 6 dollar throw away rain jacket from Savers the entire race.  

I was slow. 

For a while at least.

So true.  

Everyone who ran yesterday was super hardcore.

We did have a great time.  I got us a hotel room a block from the finish/bus pickup.  We met up the night before and really just had fun and talked. I shared this sweet experience with fellow flight nurses Amy and Deb.

TWINNERS shirts.  Love the shirt, hate the color.

Amy and I hanging out talking and posting stuff on our phones

Amy figured the timer out on my phone.

Danger!

Fact.  Danger.  hahaha

I had rice and chicken in my teeth.

The morning started way early.  4am to get to the buses by 5.

Finish line forecast.  ew

Long wait by the fires in the cold.

Hoping for clear skies.

We found us a helicopter pilot!  Congrats Clint on meeting your goal by 5 minutes!  Animal!

SOOOO many runners!  Took us 7 minutes to get to the start line.

Amy ran with me and Deb took off and finished over an hour before we did.  This was before the swearing began. 

More then half way.  Stopped at the potty - which took over 5 minutes to get clothes down to pee.  Soaking wet all the way through.  And yes, that is my throw away black jacket.  I have a really cute outfit under it. We also had some gummy bears.  At this point we just wanted to finish.   haha

AND WE DID!!!

Over 5 hours...but heck, at least we weren't pulled off the course from hypothermia.  

First marathon in the bag.  Yes, I already want to run another one.  I really would like a do-over.  

I actually felt pretty good during the run.  The problem was there was no chance to warm up the muscles.  At the start the front of my ankles were very painful and tight, which had never happened.  When that went away everything from my glutes to my knees was so tight.  Not cramps just painfully tight.  I was scared to do too much stretching because I was SO cold.  The cheap gloves I wore stayed on about 13 miles.  They were finally SO wet that I threw them away.  I tried tucking my fingers in my jacket and that helped. My fingers tingled for 2 hours after my hot shower.  Our shoes were absolutely filled with water for more then half of the race.  They were heavy and coupled with the tight muscles we pretty much gave up any hopes of under 5 hours after the pacer paced us.  Amy's jacket that was suppose to be water proof couldn't stand up to the rain.  Actually neither jacket kept us dry but I stayed dryer longer.  

Fueling

The one thing I was most nervous about turned out great.  I had a Luna bar, Honey stinger waffle and banana before I ran.  I had mixed a Clif gel (cherry chocolate is my fav, but they didn't have those on the course) with one of my applesauce (this brand has a flat screw on top which fits better in pockets) and put it back in the applesauce container.  I also carried one applesauce without anything in it and one hazelnut butter.   In my water bottles I had one water and one Skratch hydration.  I used half the mixed applesauce at 45 min and 1hr30min.  After that  I would have a half of a gel then a little bit of applesauce.  At mile 20 I finished the applesauce with the hazelnut butter.  I drank a couple of poweraids and had a cup of water at each water stop.  No stomach upset at all.  I'll keep that system and tweak it when I train for my next one.  

I'm just a little sore today.  My back hurts a little but dang the front of my ankles and tops of my feet hurt SO bad.  My toes are fine! (miracle - lots of Vaseline on the toes) I thought with the new socks and soaking feet I would be screwed.  A day of eating crappy food and watching season 10 of Dancing with the Stars (first time watching) is what this day is doing.  

Met Jeff Galloway in the elevator!!!

YES!

I do have his books and I use the 5/1 running ratio.  He had his hand on my shoulder and was shaking cold!!  

BAD ASS

My finish stats.  

5:23:10

...and I didn't die.

Thank you Amy.  We had a real bonding run.

AND..we slept together.  

I'm not talking about the hot shower.  No pics, didn't happen.  ;)

You know your freezing when you don't care who sees you naked.

Huge props to the organizers of this marathon!  It was one of the biggest races I've been to.  So many volunteers and they were so awesome.  Most of the time when I took a cup from a hand it was just shaking.  Two shaking hands passing off cups of water.  I am so very thankful.  Ton's of water stops, plenty of portapottys, lots of Clif products, oranges, bananas, band aids, Vaseline, whatever we needed.  There was trucks driving the course hanging out silver warming blankets.  I felt like we were being watched closely for safety and taken great care of by all the volunteers.  Some awesome cheer leading going on!  The course markings were spot on and the timing thing with the app was great!  Amy and I got notices when our friends passed certain points.  Then we smacked talked them for being so fast.  ;)

Funny how marathon training takes over your life.  I can't wait to get back to having some time.  My bathroom needs cleaning...

A most productive week!

It's been a little over a year since my life became sorta topsy turvy when my ex moved out.  For a lot of reasons but this post isn't about him. But there is sure to be more about it...it's just too...odd. This post is about a week that I finally feel like I'm getting my shit together.  It's not completely together but who are we kidding, that will never happen.  It keeps life spicy!!

To start out, I took THREE full days off of any work.  THREE!!! In a row! 

I sure made them productive too!

Monday started out at noon with a long run with this girl!

This is Jill.  I've known her forever at the hospital and we started seeing each other at races.  We started talking about running in Park City and finally were able to get the schedules to sync and the planets aligned and it was a great 11 mile run.  A little slow because we talked talked talked, but it was awesome! Hanging out with Jill is like hanging out with the really smart cool kid that makes you laugh.  A lot.

Running anywhere but in the SLC valley is pretty much what is happening now. Between storms we get an inversion that is a soupy yucky mess of air.  Although I don't have any asthma or health problems I'm not going to chance it by running in basically poisonous air.

Inversion as per freedictionary.com

 Meteorology An atmospheric condition in which the air temperature rises with increasing altitude, holding surface air down and preventing dispersion of pollutants.

I took this picture from our helipad at the UofU Hospital a while ago. I'm taking a picture of downtown, which you can't see because of the inversion.  The hospital sits on the hill so sometimes it's clear of the inversion but the longer we go without a storm the bigger it gets.  The inversion, not the hospital.

Tuesday I took my car in for a good go though.  Like an annual doctor exam my car needed it's "pap and grope".  Over the weekend it did this.

BAM!

No one was harmed in the taking of these pictures but I was going 60 mph.  I don't recommend it.  I'm a skilled iPhone pic taker.

Of course my car situation isn't a subject I like to keep you abreast of.  (teehee - I said breast)  But to recap quickly.

Three years ago I leased an awesome Subaru Legacy.

18 months ago I bought my daughter a Nissan Sentra

14 months ago my ex moved out

12 months ago my daughter was then kicked out (breaking rules!) and I kept the car.

ONE month ago I returned the Subaru. 

I loved that Subaru but with the ex moving out of my house I needed to free up the money for, ya know....a house payment.  

Kapish?

Quiz later.

I took my car into a dealership, which I hate doing, but I had bought an extended warranty on it and I still had 10,000 miles left on the warranty.  Best purchase ever!  I spent 200.00 on 1000.00 worth of repairs.  Now the Nissan is smoothly running the road like it owns it!  I'm hoping for another 100,000 miles out of her!  

While we were down to one car (LaShonda the Honda) I put Daniel to work and did something my daughter thought would never happen.

  The office!  

I gave up the idea of pulling the carpet and painting all the trim to just get shit together.  After I spent a while cleaning out the room with all the crap in it then with Daniels help (thank you son!) we moved the furniture up from downstairs. I didn't have to buy anything new and the bookcase behind the desk is a gift from Austin, my oldest. LOVE!

The next day I cleaned and organized and cleaned the house.

After almost 6 years I have a desk and office that is MINE!  I'm so excited! I'm at the desk right now typing this post.  For years I've been typing on my laptop while sitting on the couch or in bed, but now I can sit at a desk and it's amazing!

 I still have some work to do but it's so much easier with a desk.  As soon as I get my file cabinet in here then I'll be able to file receipts instead of using the old, "throw it in the box" style.  

Here is a picture that was circulating Facebook by AirMed and the University of Utah hospital.

For very strict HIPPA laws I can't talk about the details.

A nurse on one of our other teams took the picture.

I'm in the trauma bay at the U.

It will stand out as one of the most tender moments of my career.  I'm not much of a toucher when it comes to patients.  Because I've seen so much tragedy, death, dismemberment and sadness I have a different view of life that some may construe as a hard heart.  I say a lot of, "Buck up buckaroo, life could be worse".  

This day my patient just wanted to be held, by me.

It was an honor.

All in all an awesome week!  I didn't blog, obviously.  But I still have a few half written posts that I hope will get posted soon.  I mean...I have a desk and everything!

Blog on.............

Slaving the day away

I love a shift when we get an early call. We get on at 10 and go to the airport and check the plane, and if we get a transport before we can get back to base that is perfect. That happened today! Good day!


It even rained in Salt Lake, that's a better day.

Blog on.......

Perfect "Welcome to Utah" Picture

Taken April 11.

Need I say more?