The race

 Mark took this picture of me the night before the race after we got or bibs pinned on.  The bib pinning is a huge tradition.  I helped Stephen get his bib pinned on in just the right place.

 After the bibs are pinned, then we have to swish our arms to make sure that the bibs are not pinned in a place that our arm swinging will catch.

I had the best race of my life.  Actually, even though it was my 7th half-marathon, it was my first race.  By this I mean that in all previous attempts at the distance, my knee has gone out on me and I had to stop and stretch and walk parts of the race.  It always made me so sad to never have a chance to just run as fast as I could.  This race was my day.  Considering the training I did (after taking much of the winter off because I was too wimpy) I am super happy with my time.  I finished the race in 2:06:39!  My goal going in was to keep around a 9:30 pace, and I did it.  Even when I was coming down the canyon and it was so easy to go fast I made myself slow down because I knew once we hit flat ground in town it was going to be hard to finish that last 3 miles.  And it WAS hard.  Miles 12-13 were tough for me, but once the finish line was in sight I took off and finished fast.  It was so fun, and of course I cried at the finish line.

 Mark's race didn't quite go as he had planned.  His goal is to run a sub-3-hour marathon.   He had trained for it, but this was not his day.  At mile 13 had slowed way down from his needed pace and he pulled out of the race knowing that if he killed himself to finish the race it would just beat up his body for 13 miles for no reason.  When you race a marathon all-out you have to spend 5 weeks recovering, and then another 4 weeks building back up.  Rather than going through that, he made the decision to stop the race and spend the next 9 weeks in additional training for 2 half marathons and  the fall marathon.  Some people run marathons  just to complete them (which is great), but Mark runs for a time goal.
Stephen's race wasn't as great as he had hoped for either.  But he decided to tough it out and finished in 3:27, about 12 minutes slower than he had trained for.  He was a little bummed about it, but I was proud of him.  That's still a great time!

 It was a great day for me, though!  I'll never forget it.