Kick Like a Girl: Layton Half Marathon 2011

Layton Half Marathon--- October 2011 2:04

I ran this race again…this time with my sister Nessa. It was her first Half Marathon, and she was excited. She doesn’t like downhill races, so I told her that Layton would be perfect since it is extremely flat. They changed the course this year so we actually started on Antelope Island, or close to it. Basically it’s a long road out in the middle of a large swampy-pond-lake-thingy. So, you have water surrounding you. The marathon starts on the far side of the Island, and we started on the causeway (that’s what they call it). So, rather than being able to get up later and get to the starting/finish line we had to get there early to get the bus. We got countless emails saying “If you arrive at 6:01, you WILL miss the bus”. So, we got there early…as to not miss the bus. We waited and waited and only 3 buses came to the starting line to pick people up. We thought maybe some of the buses were still on their way so we kept waiting….and realized that there were no more buses. We patiently waited…until about 6:45. Then, we started to get angry. It wouldn’t have been so bad if it wasn’t so cold. But, it was freezing and they told us to be there at 6:00! So cold we could see our breath. The crisp air beating my face in 25 degree weather with a strong wind was not my idea of fun. The buses didn’t get there until 7:30am, which was ridiculous because the race started at 8am and we needed to get bussed up to the starting line still. I wasn’t in a happy mood with these people. My muscles were literally sore by the time I got to the starting line because I was shivering for almost 2 hours. It was insane. I was wearing warm clothes (Under Armour cold gear) and I was still freezing. Plus, some idiots on the bus put the windows down and they wouldn’t go back up. Genius! Apparently everyone at the starting line who actually made it had nice warm heaters and were stripped down into their undies because they were so warm. I was livid. I used the potty really quickly because the gun was going to go off in less than 5 minutes. I tried to make light of the situation, since it was my sister’s first Half Marathon, but inside I wasn’t very happy and I was freezing. I’m a big fat whiny complainer when it comes to cold weather. They told us the chip timing wasn’t really working, or something like that…so we had to go off of the “gun” time. So, since I was mad and the year before all the walkers crammed my groove…I shoved my way closer to the front so we wouldn’t have to run around people who decided they wanted to walk a Half Marathon. Even getting to the front…we still had to pass people. Crazy. We had fun though…and by mile 9 I finally warmed up a bit. The race was incredibly flat, which was great. The last few miles were tough for me because my muscles were sore & tight from shivering, but we plugged away. My sister had an amazing race for it being her first. We finished together, which was awesome. We did, however, look like a couple of gomers at the finish lines. My awesome idea of holding hands at the finish made us look like we were______…well..you can fill in the blank. They had peanut butter & jelly sandwiches at the finish- genius idea! They also had a cool booth where you could take a picture with the new Verizon phone and text message it to your friends. So, we text messaged our families in Minnesota. It was fun. And then I got really cold, and needed to get to a shower