Marathon and Network Champion

This Saturday is a very special day in my running career. The St. George Marathon marks my 10th marathon. I started running marathons at the same time I started dating Steve. A few days before we met, it was my 20th birthday. To celebrate, I ran 20 miles. It was a crazy thing to do, but I had done the same thing on my 17th birthday, and thought it would be a good way to get back into running (I broke my foot about six months earlier). I hadn't run more than 3 miles for almost a year, but for some odd reason, I thought that I could still manage. It was a painful learning experience.

Even so, it gave me hope. I rode the bus to the U of U with the same bus driver for the 2 years prior and we became good friends. After I told him I was a runner, he convinced me to run my first marathon so I created a running plan and picked a marathon that was 36 weeks away. I figured having a marathon goal would not only make me fit, but also give me other unique qualities that would maybe appeal to my new flame (it didn't). And so a marathon runner was born. Since then, I have done 3 every year. I compiled a list of all my marathons to see if there is any pattern.

1. Top of Utah-September 2005-3:48
2. Salt Lake City-June 2006-3:52
3. Deseret News-July 2006-3:52
4. St. George-October 2006-3:38
5. Los Angeles-March 2007-4:22 (I had the flu that week)
6. Boston-April 2007-3:54
7. St. Geoge-October 2007-3:28
8. Leona Divide-April 2008-50 mile ultra-10:38
9. Palos Verdes-May 2008 DNF, stopped at mile 18
10. St. George-October 2008---3:10?

The main thing I've notices is that I run poor times when the marathons are close together, but have done very well at every St. George marathon. I have gotten noticeably faster with the Ultramarathon and increased training and hope to get into the low 3 hours this year (I made it 14 miles at 3:10 pace last year before an injury flared up). Hoping for a PR!!!

As a side note, this week, I had a project at work to create a presentation about one of Progressive's Network Shops. My friend Maureen headed up the project because she has gotten a recent addition to her title as team leader: NETWORK CHAMPION. It is her job to help the employees and customers understand our network program. My project won.