Nightmare up Hobblecreek Canyon

What is love?

Love is Abe getting up with me at 3:45 AM to see me off on race day.

On Saturday I ran the Hobblecreek Half Marathon with my good friend, Kim and her husband, who is now also our bishop.  It was an early morning and I had high hopes for the day.

The course was breathtakingly beautiful, but it was not a good race for me and I felt very disappointed at the end.  I have done this distance several times and felt very prepared, but I was afflicted with a viciously upset stomach for 8 of the 13 miles and the pounding of the downhill made matters even worse.  It was rather a nightmare to tell you the truth.  My time was slightly better than my first half marathon but no where near what it could have been without all the bathroom breaks and necessary gentler running to prevent a truly heinous incident.  I never thought I'd be someone who could dodge off behind some bushes to take care of business but nature called pretty loudly and I had to answer.

So there it is.  No doubt, way more information than you wanted.
Let's see-- what good can be said about the experience?
I got a nice shirt out of it.  I learned that I must take the immodium the night before the race.  I don't like running downhill and am glad the marathon (next month) is a fairly flat course.  I learned to always pack some toilet paper in my running pack.  A few days ago my left knee was giving me trouble but it felt great for the whole race.  A messed up knee is harder to fix than an upset tummy.

And I did finish and was so happy so see my family and hear Abe and the kids cheering for me.  That was actually very good.