Conquering St. George...

Someday I will finish reminiscing about Disneyland.

Today I shall discuss my 5th marathon!

I went into St. George saying I had no real set goals.

I didn't feel like I had done my best training.

However, I have been feeling really good ever since

I have been able to get my thyroid levels back in normal range.

So, I had to have some sort of goal.

I actually had about 3 different ones.

1. Finish under 4 hours.
2. If I felt good, go under 3:50
3. If I felt super dang awesome, beat my PR of 3:44

My race strategy really wasn't much of a strategy.

Take it sorta easy on the first half,

so that I can run the 2nd half faster and end feeling strong-ish.

 I don't have any pictures from before or during the race yet,

so I will try to keep it short here.

The stars all aligned for me at this race.

The weather was great.

I slept for 5.5 hours the night before.

(pretty good, for me!)

I stuck with my "strategy".

I felt awesome pretty much the whole time.

Never hit a wall, except a bit around mile 24-

but that was when the spectators were out cheering

so I couldn't disappoint them all by walking, right? ;)

(big shout out to the cute girls handing out popsicles at mile 24- just what I needed!)

I did a good job fueling at the right times.

All things worked out.

My 5th marathon was conquered!

Conquered much better than I expected, too!

  Oh yes, that's a 7 minute PR!

I was amazed and so happy.

I had dreams of getting under 3:40 at some point in my life,

 but didn't even consider it a possibility for any race anytime soon.

So yeah, I'm proud of how I raced this marathon.

I called the husband almost immediately after-

I may have shed tears for the first time ever after a race.

(for myself, at least- I always cry watching others cross the finish line)

 No, I did not run in flip-flops.

(I always put flip-flops in my drop bag so I can get my running shoes off ASAP)

I really, really loved this race!

It has some good uphill, lots of downhill, amazing aid stations,

is incredibly well organized and the finisher's medal is beautiful!

Also, the post-race refreshments are wonderful.

AND I was recognized by a blog reader for the first time!

I stalk her blog, too and knew she was running this race

but I am terrible at recognizing people.

Here I am with the cutest Jessica from Journey to the Land of Skinny!

I am so, so happy that she came up and said hi!

She did amazing and got her PR!

See- everything just came together to make this a fabulous day for me.

Thank you, St. George marathon!

I will see you next year!

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Side Note:

 I had a revelation as I stood at the start line when the gun went off.

(not a spectacular revelation- just one that had never occurred to me before)

I had to use the bathroom again (that wasn't the revelation).

I thought I would run as far as I could and go when I couldn't wait anymore.

I looked over at the port-o-potties and watched all the runners

hurrying to the corrals because the race had started.

I waited for a minute or 2...

and then went to the bathroom when there was a line of one person.

It was perfect.

Plus, I didn't add any extra minutes to my race time.

Why have I never done this before??