What a fun weekend! Harold and I took off around 1:00 to head down to
Green River, when we arrived at our cabin at Shady Acres we were
greeted by Smooth and Kelli and then Larry and Scott and 4 of Kelli's
little ones. It was so much fun visiting, we all drove over to the
Senior Citizen's Center for dinner and talked with some of the other
runners and enjoyed a potato bar dinner. There were a lot of runners
from Colorado. After we got into bed, Laurie and Chris came
knocking on our door, so we visited them for awhile and made plans for
our morning ride over to Goblin Valley, about a 45 min. drive. At
6:30 am Kelli, Smooth, Laurie and I drove over to Goblin with Harold,
the rest of the gang were going to sleep in and join us later in the
day. We saw JD at the start and chatted and got some pictures and
then we were off. I stayed with Laurie for most of the first half of
the race, we met a gal from Nebraska and a gal from Logan that we ran
with for a while. The aid stations were great, I was fueled by
Tagalongs ( Girl Scout Cookies) at every station. The weather was
beautiful, nice and cool with cloud cover for the first half of the
race. Nice scenery and more hills than I remember. I swear running is
like childbirth, you forget the hills and remember all the fun and
friends, and the pain is quickly forgotten. I am not very good at checking the pace but when we reached the half way point we had averaged about a 13. something pace. Laurie was feeling great and took off, I would see her once and awhile from a far blazing ahead in her bright pink shirt. After
the turnaround I was pretty pooped, by mile 18 I was trying to talk
myself into dropping out, Chris showed up on his bike at about that
point and gave me a smile and a little coaxing and then Harold showed up
on his bike at mile 20. I told him I was thinking of dropping and he
talked me out of it, he rode by my side until we were almost at the
parking lot of the campground. At this point I was really dragging then
this beautiful girl came running towards me looking so strong and it
was my Kelli!!! I could have bawled, I found out that she finished in
3:59 and then went back on the course to run Smooth in and then back
again to run me in. I was able to pick up the pace with her
encouragement. Kelli is a running angel!!!!!!! The last
mile running thru the Goblins was tough, it was like a maze running
back and forth following the path of pumpkins that were set up to mark
the trail, some of Kellis's kids and Laurie's kids were playing and
following us around. I kept telling Kelli I would love to beat 7:11,
she was pushing me as hard as I could go, at the very end Laurie and
her friend came and grabbed my arms and pulled me up the final hill and
I crossed the finish line at exactly 7:11 (point something) I guess
the word is out the course was short because of the rainstorm, but
whatever I ran the Goblin Valley 50K in 7:11 and I'm sticking to it!!!! Thank
you Kelli, Smooth and Laurie for such a fun weekend, and of course your
cute families!!!! Harold was awesome. Thanks sweetie, if you are
reading this! I love you!
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