Salt Lake City & the Half Marathon

The majority of my entries this year have been related to either my injury or my plan to run the Salt Lake City Marathon/Half-Marathon. It really is sad that even after all of that I have allowed over a month to pass since the event to record the experience. The fact that NO ONE has been clamoring for my write-up speaks to how little the smattering of readers I have even care. Well, I guess you have to put up with a report anyway.

After repeated attempts to train for the full marathon, each ending in IT BAND issues, I finally accepted reality and registered for the Half-Marathon. I guess it speaks well of my fitness and training to be able to just default to a 13.1 mile race without much concern. There was a time not so long ago when completing that 5k presented a significant challenge.

I arrived in Salt Lake on Thursday evening and was picked up by my sister Coleen. Even though I moved away when I was 14, Salt Lake will always feel a bit like home to me. After dinner at my sister Diana’s house we went up to my grandparent’s old house that Coleen now lives in. Perhaps no structure in Salt Lake holds more memories for me other than my childhood home. Despite the small rooms, even smaller closets, head trauma waiting to happen staircases, and general design for no one taller than 5’6", I love spending time in that house.

On Friday we had a relaxing day around the house. Then I went for a short run. That is when the panic set in. About a quarter mile into a 2.5 mile run my knee burned like it had at the peak of my troubles. I was so angry and upset and pushed through the pain (which I knew I shouldn’t do). I finished my run in severe pain but never let on to Coleen. I debated withdrawing from the race for fear of risking more damage. I don’t know what was different on that run, but it was perhaps the most humbling 2.5 miles I have ever run. Ultimately I decided that I had come to far to back out now so I stretched really well and hoped that I was just stiff from the flight and time change… (Yeah, that’s it, knee pain is attributable to jet lag! A desperate man will believe anything.)

Next Coleen took me to drive the route I would be running. This was the first time I have done this and it was really quite helpful the next day to know what was yet to come. From the endpoint we went to the Salt Palace to pick up my bib and race packet. The neatest part of that experience came in the form of an announcement over the PA system. They announced that a David Warden would be giving a presentation about Triathlon Training on one side of the conference center. I turned to Coleen and asked if they were referring to "our David Warden". She said that they might be as she thought he was a tri-athlete. We wandered over to the presentation area and there sat my 1st Cousin once removed, David Warden. We had played quite a bit as children before we moved away from Salt Lake but I’m not sure if I had seen him since! It was so cool to catch up with him.

After finishing up at the Salt Palace we went to Trolley Square. We had made a reservation at the Spaghetti Factory where all my Salt Lake family would help me carb load for my race. It was so nice to sit down to dinner with all 4 of my Salt Lake siblings and various members of their families. The trip to Salt Lake would have been worth it just for that. My mistake that night however played into the next day’s story. Looking over the menu, they didn’t have just plain spaghetti with marinara sauce at all. The closest I could find was the "Mt Vesuvius," which was close, but included Tobasco in the sauce… mistake! If anyone ever considers any menu item with the word Tobasco in the description the night before running any distance beyond the 20 feet from the TV to the toilet, STOP THEM! Other than that, the food and company were fantastic.

Due to the afore mentioned menu item, I visited the restroom 4 times between that night and the next morning. I was convinced that there was nothing left in my system to worry about, as there couldn’t possibly be anything left in my colon following the cleansing it had! (more on this assumption to come at a later time…)
Race morning I got up and went through my typical routine. I was dressed, showered, and ready to go well before race time. I ate some toast with peanut butter and proceeded to consume most of my sister’s grapefruit juice as I had drank most of her orange juice the day before. Only then did I wake her up and ask her to drive me the few short miles from her house to the start line. As we approached the start line we came to an intersection where the cops were stopping cars from getting any closer. I reacted quickly, handed my bag to my sister while asking her to bring it to the finish line, and then I bailed out of the car so she wouldn’t have to deal with the hassle of finding some place to park. Only after she drove off did it hit me that I had forgotten to call my wife as planned. My phone was in my finish line bag, pulling away. It was the first "hitch" to the day.

The temperature was perfect, cool but not cold. I had on some gloves and a hat along with my standard running gear and that was more than enough to keep me warm. At the start area I realized that Vesuvius was not done erupting and found my way through the port-a-potty line again. I jogged a bit to warm up but didn’t want to press my luck with my knee too much before the actual race. I lined up a bit further back in the pack than I should of, partly due to lack of faith in my knee, partly due to lack of faith in my ability to run at altitude, and partly due to my general lack of faith in my preparation and training. The other thing that I found a bit amusing was the start line entertainment. It was a Baptist Choir singing gospel music. Not exactly the "pump you up" race music you would expect, and oddly out of place in this bastion of the Mormondom.

When the race finally started it took me almost 2 minutes to cross the start-line and initiate the timing chip strapped to my foot. The first mile was quite frustrating weaving through very slow runners and groups of 8-10 people that present very imposing obstacles when they move en mass. Although I was moving at what I though was a quick pace my watched beeped at the 9 minute mark and I had not yet seen the 1st mile marker. I hit the lap button, convinced that I had just missed the marker.

The field continued to thin and it became much easier to find my way through the crowd but I was still passing a lot of people through that second mile. When I reached the second mile mark and my watch was still on 6:53, my suspicions were confirmed about the first mile. So including the crowd weaving I was on an 8 minute pace early on.

The third mile is where I developed a side stitch. This is not common for me at all and I think this was the first sign of running at altitude. I consciously increased the rate of my breathing to try and compensate for the lower levels of oxygen (I have no idea if this is the suggested approach to such a situation). That seemed to work as the stitch relented and didn’t come back the rest of the way. Mile 3 took me 7:32.

Mile 4, in 7:42, is where it hit me that I hadn’t even thought about my knee, let alone felt any pain from it whatsoever. It is almost just as frustrating to not have issues because it highlights the unexplained times when it blows up on me.
I had settled into a good rhythm and those middle miles went by in a blur, or should I say without incident.

Mile 5, 8:08
Mile 6, 8:14
Mile 7, 7:52

Somewhere in mile 8 the red pepper sauce from coastal Louisiana decided that it wasn’t done and I felt the growing need to find a port-a-potty once again. I went quite a ways trying to convince myself that I could hold it or perhaps that it was just gas and I could let it out and be done but eventually rightly concluded that the next available outhouse would need to be occupied. Mile 8, 8:18.

As I was passing the 9 mile mark, 8:27, in Liberty Park I was in near panic, looking for the park lavatories, debating asking a local home owner, anything short of ruining a good pair of running shorts. Then I saw the row of plastic green sheds up ahead that had never appeared as such a godsend to me before. I jumped in and stopped my watch (I didn’t want to count non-running time!). The pit stop took me almost exactly 2 minutes and was far more enjoyable than any "No 2" should be. As I took off running again my knee twinged for the first time all day and I nearly panicked but within a few hundred feet the pain went away, never to return the rest of the run.

Mile 10, which included a little of the in and out of the potty was run in 8:55. Miles 10 and 11 went by with a new lightness afoot but still were slower due to the stage in the race I was at. Mile 11 took 8:46. Although I was slowing, I was still quite happy with my overall time considering all of the obstacles I was facing coming into the race. I had set what I thought was a realistic goal of 2 hours, roughly 9-minute miles, given those obstacles, so my splits up to this point had all been gravy. Then I hit the biggest obstacle the course had to offer, State Street climbing up to South Temple. Most of the course is downhill, something like 400 feet net from start to finish, but mile 12 is a straight shot that gets steeper and steeper as you go. The capital building and the stupid arching bird monument over State Street at South Temple are deceptively far away and taunt you the entire climb. Mile 12 was my only split slower than 9 minutes (other than my miss timed 1st mile) and that beast of a hill nearly broke me, 9:32. It was the one of the few places where I noted several people passing me and perhaps the most apparent example of my lack of altitude training.

The run down South Temple to the old train station was relaxing in comparison. I ran Mile 13 in 8:34. The turn into the shopping center that was the finish line was really cool. The last .1 miles (39 seconds) was through a relatively narrow outdoor mall that crowded the family and friends right on top of you. I saw Coleen with her two boys and heard her screaming my name. Only later did I see how poor of a videographer she was. ;) Diana and Adam were down the chute a bit further, near the finish line. It was so cool to have them take time out of their day to cheer me on.

So, the final results:

Gun Time (from when the gun starts the race until I finished): 1:52:48
Chip Time (subtracts the time to cross the start line - what the organizers use to assign placements outside of the "winners"): 1:50:53
Watch Time (did not include the potty break): 1:48:49

Placement:

802nd out of 4139 Half Marathoners
545th out of 1588 males
79th out of 248 35-39 year old males

Overall, I was ecstatic with the finish. It could always be better, but halfway between my fastest (1:40:35) and my slowest (1:59:05) Half Marathon times was a perfect compromise given the challenges of injury, elevation, and digestion that I faced.

That evening we went swimming at Cottonwood Spa where I really learned how to swim as a kid. I went by my childhood house that has changed SO MUCH since my childhood. On Sunday we went to Church in my Grandparents old ward house. That may be the first time I have been in that building for anything other than a funeral. Then Coleen hosted a big dinner with the whole family coming over. It was a great get together that could have only been improved with the addition of my wife, parents, and other missing siblings. It is times like that that make me miss not living closer to the bulk of my family.

I flew home Monday morning, having failed to make time to visit a college friend that I had hoped to stop by and see but for the most part I had accomplished what I had set out to do that weekend. In the end the trip was less about the run and more about my sister and my family for many reasons but I was glad that the run had given me a reason to be in Salt Lake at that particular window of time. Hopefully, at some future date, I can return to the valley and conquer the full 26.2 miles I had intended to run.

Nissan Upgrade Plan

Now that I have successfully chased off all of my faithful readers (both of them) by my failure to update for going on two months… I guess it is time I write something. My guilt and failure have been highlighted by my enjoyment of a friend’s blog that has had an enthralling thread of entries about her courtship 18 years ago as recorded in her journal at the time. What a fantastic window a journal is into your own mind. While some events are communicated through facebook, there is no lingering record of my status posts. I have come to realize that my blog is the only form of journal I am likely to keep in the foreseeable future so I better make a few attempts at entry every now and then.

So, where was I when I left off? I had just been cleared to run by my physical therapist, my Salt Lake City Half Marathon was 2.5 weeks away, and I was still driving a Nissan Sentra… I guess things have changed some since then. I will try to catch up, but I won’t do it in one MEGAPOST that takes forever to read and covers everything from then to now… I’ll try and break it up some.

I progressed quickly after I was cleared to run. I didn’t do too much or go too far but I had a couple weeks in the upper teens in terms of mileage. The PT asked to see me one last time on Monday the 13th at which point I would be on my own. I got up and left to that appointment. It was raining pretty hard and I was driving a stretch of road that I am normally on an hour earlier. The added traffic, the poor visibility, and I will admit, my mind being elsewhere, culminated in me wrecking my 2000 Sentra.

A mini-van had stopped and was waiting for oncoming traffic to turn left into his subdivision. There was no turn lane and the right side of the road had a guardrail preventing me from ditching off to the right. This road is about a mile long with just this one 8-10 house subdivision on it. I had never encountered cars going in or out of it before in all my years of passing it. After turning on the road my focus was diverted to something else, what I have no idea. I just remember I was not looking straight ahead when I realized that this silver mini-van, shrouded in rain and low clouds, blurred by the early morning light… POPPED out of nowhere to be parked 40 feet in front of me with me going 40mph on wet pavement.

I locked it up but the damage was done. I did manage to avoid hitting him square, more my front left to his right rear. I think that is why my airbag didn’t deploy, thank goodness. It probably resulted in more damage to my car however. Being paid for with liability only, my Sentra was a complete write off. Of course, Jamie had to show up with her cell phone camera to document the damage…

I was fine. The only damage was a small scratch on my left shin and a HUGE gouge in my ego that will heal over time. I ended up taking the day off, never going to my appointment (or back to PT since), and buying a new car that day. We really are a family that can’t function without two vehicles so waiting to buy was only an option if we were to borrow a car for a few days, which a friend offered, but I didn’t want to mess with it.

Long story short, we ended up buying a white 2005 Nissan Altima 2.5SL. We discovered last year (after Jamie similarly totaled the van) that if we went with a slightly used car, we could load up on the options and still have it be affordable. So our van has the built in DVD w/ 6 disk changer, stow-n-go seats, heated leather seats, sunroof, and the tow package (slightly bigger engine and a tow hitch). Similarly, my Altima has the heated leather seats, BOSE sound system w/ 6 disk changer, and the sunroof. I really have enjoyed the added features that we could never afford or justify on a new vehicle.

A month later, I cannot tell you how much nicer my commute to and from work has been. I get 3-4 less miles per gallon than my Sentra, but I should have traded up long ago. To think, all I had to do was sacrifice my perfect driving record...

Let's Try This Again

This morning at my Physical Therapist I was officially cleared to start running again. He says to do 3 miles Thursday and Saturday, 5 miles on Monday and Tuesday, maintain the stretching and hip exercises I have been doing and he will make the call next Wednesday whether or not to clear me to continue.

I have ridden the roller coaster of rest/run several times this winter with the same results. This time I took the extra step of working with the PT and doing daily stretches and exercises focused on getting my IT Band back in good order. Today, during my appointment, I ran over a mile on their treadmill and felt no pain or discomfort at all. I felt better than any run I've done since November.

I am trying not to get to hopeful and count my chickens here, but I really do feel the difference in my hips and core strength. I am really looking forward to Salt Lake in 2.5 weeks. But more than anything, I am looking forward to a return to normalcy with my knee and not having to stress about it each time I lace up my shoes!

Keep your fingers crossed.

What do you do when your Dr. says you have a weak butt?

Well, after weeks and weeks of trying to avoid the inevitable I finally broke down and went to to the physical therapist last week. I know I should have done it sooner, but hopefully this will be the kick I need to get me back to running without pain. So what did I learn?

First off, my IT Band issue is not a one event injury. What happens is the band rubs on the side of the bone and gets frayed over time. Being white tissue, it just doesn't get the blood flow needed to repair itself. That also means that it takes longer to heal and most of the things I am doing now are to make sure it doesn't fray again.

Next, my physical therapist told me I have a WEAK BUTT!!! Runners have strong legs but the muscles in the hips and buttocks don't get worked with running. With weak glutes your hips flair out further with each stride, tightening the IT Band just at the moment it passes past the knob on the bottom of the femur. Stronger Butt = Less Hip Swing = Less Damage to the IT Band. How does that song go? "Leg bone's connected to the hip bone...."

Prescription? A kick in the REAR! Lots of exercises and stretches for the upper leg and hip. After my appointment with him this morning, I can hardly sit! He has me doing a daily routine that takes up to an hour to complete. I'm not allowed to run for another week but I think I'll be good for Salt Lake next month.

The other thing he has me doing is pinpoint icing my IT Band for 10 minutes 1-2 times a day. I always thought that it was just to prevent inflammation but my PT has told me it has the added benefit of inducing blood flow to the area. Remember how I said that the white tissue doesn't get enough blood flow to help in repair? Well, by making the area supper cold the body says, "HEY, we better send some blood to Sector 7 to warm it back up." That extra blood helps to repair the damaged tissue.

So, if any of you have a desire to start running, don't forget to cross train your butt and hips or risk long term damage to your knees!

The Half Nelson It Is Then

Sorry. I don’t know why I feel the need to apologize. It is not like I didn’t give it a try. I gave it probably more of a try than I should have considering the injury and pain I have been dealing with. I guess I feel like I am letting some people down (including, and perhaps primarily, myself) and any time I think I may be disappointing someone, I feel the need to say sorry. The mind was willing but the body was not…

If you didn’t guess from that first paragraph or from the blog title, (either you haven’t been following my blog or you are really slow today) I’ve failed in my plan to prepare for and run the Salt Lake City Marathon on April 18th. During Saturday’s scheduled 14 mile run from my PLAN, I had to cut it short due to severe knee pain around mile 6. I slowed to an 11:30 pace and "crawled" home completing only 10 miles. Although some would be happy with that pace, and I would have loved to have run that pace at the end of last year’s marathon, the pain would have slowed me even further had I pushed out to 14 (let alone 26.2) miles.

So, as I stated in my last post, if I couldn’t follow that plan there really is no way I could properly prepare for a full marathon in just over a month from now. And considering the shape my knees are in, it would probably do more harm than good anyway.

So what does this mean? Today I officially signed up for the Half Marathon. I still won’t be gunning for my 1:40:18 PR at that distance but I am cautiously optimistic (not that my optimism has helped me of late…) that my knees will hold together for at least a 2 hour goal. I am still VERY EXCITED to visit my family and run in this event.

I also finally scheduled my visit to the Physical Therapist. After my doctor visit (and the drugs they gave me) the pain really went away. That, combined with a hectic work schedule, kept me from going to the PT that the doctor had referred me to. Well, this last Saturday was the last straw. My knees are recovering much more quickly following my runs now but I want to learn what I need to do to stop the in-run pain.

One last affirmation… Salt Lake City has not defeated me, my knees did. In the words of MacArthur "I shall return!" or Mr Schwarzenegger if you prefer "I’ll be back!" I hereby promise to run the full marathon in Salt Lake City someday.

My Plan, a Full Nelson

I think the few of you that read my blog are well aware of my challenges in preparing for a planned marathon in April. With the Kearny 9 mile run on February 21st, followed up with a successful 12 mile run on the 28th, I started to do the calculations. With 7 weeks until the Salt Lake Marathon I am asking myself if there is a logical path between where I am right now and the possibility of running a full marathon on April 18th. By "logical" I mean that there is a training plan that follows safe guidelines to prepare me for 26.2 miles that doesn’t take shortcuts which would open me up to even more injury. I think there is, but only one.

Every plan you look at has two basic elements of minimal training to realistically prepare for a marathon. One, you have to have run at least one run of at least 20 miles and Two, you should not increase weekly mileage by more than 10-15% week to week. Beyond those elements there are other things that are desirable but not as critical. Things like, you should be running at least 35 miles a week (and if you are doing 20 on one day, this is really not that hard!), you should aim for your long runs to be no more than 50% of your weekly miles, you should have a 2-3 week "taper" to allow your body to rest and repair training damage prior to race day. There are a million other things, but these are the elements I contemplated in my situation.

First, where am I right now? The last two weeks have been 18.5 and 22 miles respectively with the long runs I mentioned above, 9 & 12. I have been doing almost all of my weekday runs on a treadmill and not once over 4 miles. The miles on the treadmill are easier on my knees and I can do more of the proper stretching on a carpeted floor in a heated house than leaning up against a car at 5am in 40 degree weather. So, as much as I cringe at the treadmill training, I think it will be key to getting me to the Full Marathon.

So the key to my plan is the month of March! Each Saturday in March my long run will have to lengthen by 2 miles; 14, 16, 18, 20. If I can do that, I can then taper back down to race day in April; 16, 10, 26.2. If for any reason I fall off of that schedule, I think it would be unrealistic and dangerous to run the full marathon and I will step back down to train for a half-marathon which I am confident I would be able to complete that day. (Unless my knee completely blows up... then I walk the 5k… but that’s not going to happen, right?)

So here is the plan, you can follow my log on the right side of the page to see how I do each week but I will keep you posted on any significant deviation or development.

Week Ending......Long Run Length (miles)....Total Miles for Week
March 7....................................14.........................................25.5
March 14..................................16.........................................29.5
March 21..................................18.........................................34
March 28..................................20........................................39
April 4.......................................16.........................................34
April 11.....................................10.........................................24
April 18 ...................................26.2......................................34.2

The other element of my training that has had me thinking a lot lately is what to use as my motivation. I have almost always had the motivation of wanting to set a new personal record in any race I have run. The ONLY instance that I didn’t improve on my previous record at a race distance in the last 3 years was last years Peachtree Road Race on the 4th of July when I was running with 55,000 people and it was more for the experience than a PR. But I still ran a good time.

This time around I am not trying to kid myself into thinking I will improve my marathon time. I hope I do, and I will pace initially for a 4 hour marathon, but I would be shocked if this level of training and my patched together knees would allow me to finish there.

Last fall I found the fundraising I did for Diabetes Action to be very rewarding and provided a lot of strength and motivation over the final grueling miles of that run. I’m not doing another fundraiser at this point, one because I can only humble myself to ask for donations from friends and family only so often, and two because I have neither the time nor resources to put something like that together like I did last year.

So I asked myself, "Why am I running in Salt Lake when injury and lack of training would dictate perhaps putting it off?" It started off as something that would be fun to share with more of my brothers and sisters but that alone doesn’t get me over the hurdles I have been jumping. The biggest reason I can’t pull out now is that my two sisters would probably KILL me, but that gets me to Salt Lake, not through 26.2 miles.

I haven’t asked my sister if this was okay, but I hope she will forgive me. Last Saturday, on my long run, I had a kernel of an idea that sprouted into a full concept in a dream I had Sunday night. My nephew Nelson has been fighting more health issues during his 10 years of life than any human should face in a lifetime. He went into the hospital on Saturday, I’m sure that is why he was in my thoughts. The further I ran that day, the more the concept of completing the Full Marathon became a reality to me.

Forgive the terrible play on words here but I kept thinking things like, "Run the Full for Nelson" and other pun variations of the worlds most notorious wrestling headlock… "I can escape from a Full Nelson", "Life is a Full Nelson", you get the picture. Sunday night I dreamt that I ran the whole race wearing a shirt reading "Put me in a FULL NELSON!" with my nephew’s face on the front. If you have ever been put in a Full Nelson (as the youngest of 8 kids, trust me, I have) it can be suffocating, frustrating, and painful. The key to escaping this hold involves flexibility, relaxation, strength, and perhaps more than anything else, patience. What a great metaphor that is not only for my race, but life in general.

The more I have thought about it, the more right it feels. So, I hope my sister and brother-in-law don’t mind but I am dedicating this run to their son who has shown more flexibility, strength, and patience than most grown men have been asked to have. His relaxed, matter of fact demeanor that I have seen in him, belies the pain and struggle he has faced and overcome each time. I hope I have half his composure when I hit the wall somewhere near mile 23 (based on previous experience).

And what if I falter this month and can’t do the full marathon? Hey, a HALF Nelson is a wicked strong headlock as well!

Knee Roller Coaster

Since my marathon I have been riding a physical and emotional roller coaster. I have lovingly called it my "knee issue" or "IT band struggles" and many cuss words not fit for documentation in this blog. It has been a mix of denial, pain, optimism, depression, prescription and over the counter medication, doctor visits, rest, limping, new sleep positions, questioning my commitment to running, rapid weight gain, some periods of weight loss, stress induced eating, recommitment, bodily betrayal, comments on how good I am looking, questions as to whether I have put a few pounds back on,...... I think you are getting the picture.

Here is how it looks in graph form. This is my last 52 weeks of training miles. Gradual building of miles, running a 10k every few months, peaking in September, tapering in October, and then a brutal race schedule of Marathon on November 8th and Half-Marathon on Thanksgiving day. Over 1000 miles, NO INJURIES. Then it hits the fan.
Following a planned rest period in early December I tried to start running during Christmas break. What had been observed just before my Half Marathon as a minor knee irritation in my right knee exploded into severe pain after each run, no matter how long or how hard. By the end of the year I had identified it as an IT Band issue and resolved to take three full weeks off and let it rest and then commence my training for Salt Lake.

I resumed running the last two weeks of January. Each run had pain or discomfort but I "pushed through" thinking it might ease with time. (I am not claiming to be the brightest crayon in the box here.) At the end of January I couldn't fool myself any longer. I was taking two Advil and two Excedrin every 4 hours just to numb the pain enough to walk. I finally went to see a doctor. She gave me a far better anti-inflammatory and a muscle relaxant to allow me to sleep.

With that two week rest and better pharmaceuticals I was pain free for the first time since November. I began running again VERY SLOWLY and with A LOT of stretching in mid-February. The first week I ran until I felt even the slightest discomfort. At first sign I would immediately stop and walk. If the tightness or discomfort didn't subside, I stopped.

While visiting my parents in Kearny Arizona last weekend I went for a morning run. I ran to one side of town, okay, to the other side of town, a little off but not discomfort, two miles around my old high school track, and then it happened. I noticed that for the first time in three months, I couldn't even feel my knee! I ran to the top of town and then winded back to my parents house all at a faster pace and with NO Pain! Now don't get too impressed, it was only 9 miles total as Kearny is just not that big, but for the first time in a LONG time I felt optimistic.

This week I have three runs for a total of 10 miles under my belt and so far, not one bit of pain... I have a hard time thinking what I may have done right or what the true cause of my change of condition may be but I am not complaining. The only other change I have made is at the end of January I stopped umpiring our church basketball league. The knee pain came before I started umpiring but it certainly got FAR worse during the period I was umpiring... I don't know but really I don't care.

It remains to be seen if my knee will hold together for training over the next month and a half. I am committed to run in Salt Lake on April 18th... its just a matter of WHAT I run. 5k? Half? or Full Marathon? I haven't ruled out any of those options just yet and I am realistic to know that I will not be setting any personal records, no matter which distance I run. At this point I only appreciate that I will be running something!

For all my Salt Lake friends and family - If I can push through these obstacles, I am confident you can push through yours and join me on April 18th in some measure. A 5k can be WALKED in under an hour! Are you going to join me?