AF Canyon Half Marathon

Last Saturday I ran the American Fork Canyon Half Marathon. I've been training for this half marathon for 14 weeks and I was so excited and nervous to run it. 

This purpose of this race was to raise money to help cancer patients in the community who are fighting cancer. 100 percent of race fees goes directly to help them pay their treatments. I think it is a wonderful cause and I am glad that I decided to participate in this race. I heard that about $250,00 was raised this year. That is amazing.

 

I woke up at 2:45 AM (!), got ready and left home at 3:20 AM. I arrived at American Fork High School at 3:50 AM. I got on the bus at 4:00 AM to go to the starting line. It was still very dark and cold. I tried to keep myself warm, ate a banana and drank some water to get ready. This race was sold out, so there were about 2500 runners. I was a bit lonely standing there by myself, but was able to find a family I know and talked to them while we were anxiously waiting for the race to start. The setting at the starting line was beautiful. It was the Tibble Fork Reservoir surrounded by Mt. Timpanogos, and it was so pretty to see the sky started to get bright as the sun rose over the valley.

This was take at the funny pose spot, and I chose to be very Japanese with my peace sign. :)

The course was simply gorgeous. I really enjoyed it. I was worried about running the mostly-downhill course, but it was not as hard as I anticipated. I kept good pace the majority of the time, but after 10 miles I got tired and slowed down a bit. I specifically chose the training plan to help me avoid hitting the wall at 10 miles, so I was a little disappointed that I couldn't sustain my speed. I probably should have carb-loaded during the tapering week, but I didn't do it as much because I didn't want to gain extra weight.  ;)

I finished it in 2:05:45.1. It was about 6 mins faster than the first half marathon I ran last October. I am happy about the result, but I would like to run in sub-two someday.

The medal was very high quality and heavy. Isn't it cool?

The served the Kneader's cinnamon french toast after the race. It was delicious. I usually prefer something less sweet with protein after the race, but I was looking forward to this and was very happy to eat it.

I went home, and remembered that I had this tattoo stickers I was going to put on before the race. I decided to use it just for fun.  

It really was a great race. Very well organized, the volunteers were awesome, and the course was amazing and inspiring. I am planning to run this race again next year.