Arizona

Of COURSE I met Ryan Hall on my 1/2 marathon vacation! I was so surprised and excited because he is a running celebrity. For those of you who don't know who he is, I'll enlighten you. Ryan Hall is an elite Olympic runner who holds the American title for fastest 1/2 marathon, (59:43--that's fast). I read about him all the time in Runner's World so it was cool to see him sitting there just waiting to give me an autograph and to visit with me for a minute. I only had to wait for about three minutes too--it was lucky! He was so nice! He asked me which race I was running and what my goal was. I was embarrassed to tell him that I was shooting for around a 12 minute mile, but that's ok! He ended up placing 2nd in the half. Here's a cool news story that gave a good recap of the race.

As for my experience, It went ok. I was really tired that morning and didn't have my usual race excitement butterflies. I did come close to my goal which is good. It was challenging to run on pavement after training on the treadmill, I'm still a little stiff because of it. Also, I walked through every water station and drank as much as I wanted before trotting off again. Aside from that, I did run the whole time so by mile ten I was pretty tired. I thought the bands were fun and there were tons of runners and people along the way, but the course itself was kind of boring. The city streets weren't much to look at so I people watched a little and just kept plugging along. I ended up with a time of 2:44:03 and that's fine. I really do hope that I can speed up again someday and break my PR from Salt Lake. This was my 5th 1/2 marathon and I added a third state to my race log, so I'm happy that I can say that.

I had the chance to go and visit my friend Allison overnight and lucky for me, Denise told me to leave Jolie with her so I wouldn't have to worry about having her with me. Allison and I had a great time! We went to the gym and to the San Tan Mall which is a new development and all outdoors, then we went to lunch at Joe's Farm Grill. Joe's was so good that I told Allison we better take Brett back there after the race. We also drove around a little so she could show me her neighborhood and all of the things she always tells me about. It was so fun and even though it was a short visit, I'm glad that we had a chance to hang out and catch up in person. Thanks for spoiling be with Belgian chocolates and lunch Allison!

While I was gone the boys went to the shooting range to shoot skeet and targets and whatever else boys shoot with guns. They also got to see a machine gun fire a bunch of rounds and they took a video of it for us--haha! After that they went and tore it up at the go-cart track and I think they had at least as much fun as I did. Brandon also took Brett to a couple of different stores and they brought home fifteen different kinds of bottled root beer. Brett's been a little obsessed with root beer lately! It was pretty fun to try all the different kinds. Some of them were good and some of them were disgusting.

Other highlights of the trip were the beautiful weather, getting oranges at a citrus orchard, the health and fitness expo, Organ Stop Pizza, and just hanging out with Brandon, Denise and their family. Organ Stop was very fun--even Colby didn't want to leave. The entire restaurant seating area is surrounded by a huge Wurlitzer organ. The Organist was amazing too. He played every request from Phantom of the Opera to The Mission Impossible theme song. If you're ever in Mesa--it's worth going.

On the way home yesterday we stopped for lunch in St. George at Brett's sister Kara Lee's house. She made us a delicious lasagna and it was great to see her and her little boy Dane. They are getting ready to move to Hawaii, so it was fun to see where they've been in St. George before they leave. After that, we went to my mom's house to get the dog, have dinner and let the kids relax and play for a bit before we made the last leg of our trip home. We drove 882 miles in one day and made it home just after 9pm. Now it's back to normal life. I'm glad that we got a break though--it was great!