Mt. Nebo Half Marathon!

First year running a half marathon, and I've already run 3.  Do you think I'm addicted?  Sheesh.  I guess it runs in the blood!  This was definitely my favorite one so far!  Even though my knee thought it was the worst thing in the world  ;)  I convinced my friend Natalie to train for her first half marathon, and I'm so glad she agreed!  It was fun running with her.

The race was down the canyon in Payson and it was absolutely beautiful!  Very cold at the start, but very much worth it.  I will definitely be doing this race again.  With or without my knee.

Our running group, before the start

The first 9 or so miles I kept thinking to myself "I need to slow down, I'm going way faster than my body [particularly, my knee] is used to!"  But I felt soo good!  Granted the whole thing was pretty drastic downhill  :)  That definitely helped.  I was just praying for once it wouldn't happen...  But sure enough, around mile 9, I took a step around a corner and felt that all too familiar sharp zing down my right IT Band.  It only happened with that one step so I just slowed down and kept going.  But a few steps later it was happening with every step.  Now that it's over, I can't help thinking how happy I am that I actually got to mile 9 without anything happening!!!  But at the time I just wanted to rip my knee off.  [yes, I know I need to chill out!]

Thank goodness I can almost stop...

Definitely pretending not to be in pain!

Ya know...  I really, really wish I wasn't so competitive.  Honest.  But, like I said, it runs in my blood.  When I crossed the finish line I just wanted to start crying.  [oh wait, I did]  Yes, part of it was because I could hardly put weight on my knee, but 90% of it was because I was so disappointed with myself.  I kept saying in my head, "if this *bleep bleep bleeping* knee didn't start hurting like always, I would have finished soo much quicker!"  Now that it's over, I feel soo embarrassed that I acted the way I did.  Not many of my friends can do what I did this summer.  And certainly not many of them can take 25 minutes off my finishing time from my first half marathon in April to my third one only 5 months later.  I have improved a lot more than I expected to.  I need to stop being so hard on myself.  So let me take this time to apologize to everyone that has heard me whine about my running.  For the first time since I started running a few years ago, I really consider myself to be a RUNNER!  And I love that I have such good examples to look up to! 

While training for this half, I kept saying that I was ready to get it over with and be done for the year.  It really is so stressful working full time, going to school more than full time, and finding time to train for a race.  I was ready to just focus on school [and have somewhat of a life].

Well apparently that's not going to happen.  Go figure I've already found another half I want to do next month [the Haunted Half], and I've already convinced my awesome friend Lizzy to run it with me.  Oh boy.  What have I gotten myself into?!  :)

'Til next month!

First Time Shooting!

Well, I have officially shot a gun!  And it was terrifying!  But if you know me at all, you know that I am extremely destructive at heart  :)  The only thing that could have made this any better was if I had exploding targets!  Next time...

Jared's friend Daniel has LOTS of big, scary guns...  He has taken Jared shooting before, and things didn't turn out for the best for Jared...  at least for his face  [see blog post HERE].  But luckily there were no injuries this time  :)

We went to an outdoor shooting range up by East Canyon, and as soon as we got out of the car I nearly had a heart attack.  Yes, I may like destroying things, but usually what comes with that is LOUD noises...  And I do not like loud noises.  And let me tell you, these were loud guns!  Even with my big 'muffs on, I would jump about a foot off the ground every time someone shot a loud gun!

We started out nice and easy with a .22 rifle.  I was scared at first, but there wasn't any kick to it and it wasn't loud at all.  Oh, and I was a dang good shot at it, too!

That little square there, that was mine!  Oh, and I definitely got the bulls-eye 3 times.  No big deal.

The next gun we shot was a hand gun.  A .45 caliber, to be exact.  Oh, and a 1911 .357 magnum.  Or something like that.  I don't know my gun lingo.  As you can tell, I had no idea how to really hold the gun.  Oh, and yes, that is a nervous smile/laugh below.  This gun was much louder than the first.  And a lot more powerful.  Oh, and I definitely wasn't a very good shot with this one...  Maybe because I was shaking too much haha! 

Jared looked much better shooting than I did!!

Of course we saved the best for last.  An AR-15.  Oh my, terrifying.  This gun was freaking LOUD!  And it didn't help that the guy next to us had a loud-as-crap rifle.  Freak.  Every time either of these guns went off I could feel my insides rumble and I'd have to force myself to breathe haha!  And the suspense of when they were going to go off was even worse...  The kind of suspense that makes you squint just waiting.  Yikes.  I really didn't want to shoot this gun, but the boys made me  :(  For some reason it was a lot more scary watching than it was shooting.  Maybe because that suspense was mostly gone since I was in charge of when it was going to shoot!  And yes...  This gun definitely turned out to be my favorite  :)  and yes, I was pretty dang good at shooting metal targets way up on the mountain.  Don't mess.

Daniel looking through the scope to see the target.  Yeah, the target was that far away!

The targets were waaaay up that gulley on the left

So keep in mind folks...  Next time you think about pissin' me off, just think about how pro I am with a gun.  With big guns.  I don't mess around.  Haha just kidding!  .......seriously though.  Watch yourselves.