Running

I've been on a marathon training program for several weeks. I've read several marathon books. The first book I read was actually the best and I'm surprised it's not more well known. ( I really think there was something inspired in that this book was the first one I picked up at the library).
It's whole title is "The Complete 26-week Training Program - Marathon and Half Marathon, The Beginner's Guide" by - Marnie Caron & The Sports Medicine Council of British Columbia.
I've haven't posted about this before because I was waiting to find out if our running group would get into the St George Marathon. Our little group came about by chance almost but it's been a great group. We call ourselves The Running Chics and our mother hen is Leslie Peterson. She is in my ward, cuts my hair and is an ultra runner. She's running the St George again this year - for the 12th time. It's been great to do long runs as a group. It's so much easier when you're all fighting your way up a long hill together.
So, we entered the St George Marathon on the very first day you could enter (April 1) and then had to wait over 6 weeks to find out if we would get in. That marathon is so popular that they have a lottery system to get in.
We all started this training program. It's a very detailed run/walk program that so far has been AWESOME! It takes every day of every week and tells you exactly what to do. That may not work for some people but it's perfect for me. We just finished week 6 with a 6 mile long run on Friday. I felt great during the run/walk (3 min run/1 min walk) and at the end I felt like I could've gone longer. I was pretty excited to go that far. I've never run farther than 3 1/2 miles in my life.
A week ago we got the sad news that we didn't get into the St George Marathon. We were all really bummed! But we're still training. I've personally decided to do the Logan Marathon (TopofUtah) in September.


Yesterday, 3 of us from our running group did the 5K Running With Angels at Thanksgiving Point Gardens. Races are always very motivating to me and get you all pumped up. The course was beautiful although more hilly than we expected. Our group stayed together for the most part and finished within 30 seconds of each other. My official chip time was 36:42:2. I felt great about that and it was fun to look at the race results and see that in my age group I was 21st. Racing is one thing where age gives me a little advantage :)

This is me and my friend, Paige. She was also at the race. She's the one that gave me the idea to do that race. She did a great job on the race and is an amazing woman. For her description of the race go here.

I can't believe I'm actually training for a marathon but I've thought about it for years and have talked with Leslie about it many times. It's one of those "bucket list" things for me. The main thing is the marathon training is a goal to just get in shape and be able to run 3 miles easily several times a week. I'm actually looking forward to our upcoming 8 and 9 miles runs.
For me, it's now or never.