13.5 miles

Two weekends ago I ran a half marathon with my dear friend Marci. How did this come about you ask, well let me tell you. Marci is my workout buddy. We've been working out together since the first week we met. We'd go on runs and workout in her basement, ya know, nothing to fancy. Somewhere in the middle of my pregnancy when I had the running bug but was unable unable to run, we decided that it would be a great idea to run a half marathon once I had Connor. So our quest began to find a half marathon. During our search we decided we should do one where we have to stay in a hotel because that would be much more fun. That narrowed things down quite a bit but we still weren't quite sure which one to choose. And then we saw it. A half marathon 3.5 hours away (hotel stay check check) and it was a trail run! We both love running on trails and have run trails many many times in Utah. It didn't matter that neither of us had done anything remotely close to trail running in over two years, or that we had no close trails to train on. We'll do it!!! Had we looked a little closer we would have realized this was no wimpy Virginia trail run. Oh well!!! We paid our money and we were off. During the first 3 miles we climbed 2700 feet. Ouch! My engineering husband calculated it out to be about and 18% incline. There were more ups and downs throughout the rest of the trail but nothing compared to those first three miles. However I must admit I was really really sad to see another hill during mile 12. It was tough but we did it!!! We survived this crazy trail run and are already looking forward beating our times next year!!!!