SLC Marathon

Race number one of the three that I am currently signed up for has come and gone and I finished and survived!  I rode the SLC bike tour of the SLC marathon route with my dad on April 21.  It was so much fun to do a race with my dad, I only tacked on 15 minutes to his usual time, no big deal, but he was nice and rode with me for most of the race.  The bike tour began at 6 am, an hour before the runners start the marathon.  We got there literally ten seconds before it was go time, we pulled up right as they started the count down so I didnt' have much time to document the hundreds of bikers in the early morning, all excited for a great bike ride.  I was able to capture one picture of all the participants, and one of my excited/nervous, helmet covered head.  We counted down with the whole crowd and then we were off!

The race was a blast, it was pretty cold though, I'm glad my dad is the most prepared person on the face of the earth and brought a jacket for me to wear or else I would have froze!!  It was a really nice course that was mainly down hill or flat with only one or two slight inclines.  The starting line was at the Legacy Bridge up by the U of U, and the finish line was downtown across the street from the Delta Center.  Race courses are a dream to ride because all the streets are blocked off so there are no cars, stop lights or stop signs to worry about, I love it!  It was awesome to watch the sunrise over the blue mountains, there were so many times I desperately wanted to stop and take a picture, but I resisted and remained in race mode.  I wish I could have been a little bit faster and shaved those 15 minutes off my time. They weren't timing us or anything, it was just for fun, but I was timing myself and wanted to be slightly faster. But that is something I can work on in my training for the next race. 

Even though the race wasn't extremely challenging, it was still great to see the finish line and receive our medals!  We then collected our refreshments, creamies and fruit, and enjoyed the feeling of accomplishment.  I thought the medals we got were super awesome, my dad said it was the first year that they were different, for the past few years they have handed out the exact same medal, and they were the best he had ever received from this race. Score!

This is the first race that I have done that handed out medals, thus there are millions of pictures of it.

These are the shirts that we got in our goody bags.  I thought they were super nice, they were made out of a breezy mesh material, perfect for exercising.

The race wasn't the hard bike ride of the day, the hard part was biking home after we had completed the race.  Since the entire race was down hill, the entire ride home was up hill .... hills and I don't get along very well .... We took the route that went up through memory grove and then up 11th ave.  This is one of the routes my dad does for his daily bikes rides, seriously where did he come from?  I made it up the memory grove hill, it had breathtaking views of the state capitol against a backdrop gorgeous mountains.  By the time I made it to the top my dad had started to come back to look for me hahaha I did stop to take a lot of pictures, which made my already slow accent even slower....  I told him to go ahead and get the car and he could come get me from wherever I had made it to.  I completed like 90% of the ride home when he came and got me.

This race was so much fun, and such a great memory created with my awesome dad!  I am excited for more races in the future!