Summer Running... had me a blast!

The kids are growing up, which has brought Mike and I to a new point in our lives where we can't really run together.  The kids are too big, or too little to push around with us, so we have gone our separate ways.  Now, we have running partners.  Mike's main reason for running with friends is that it gets him up early.  It's harder to sleep in when you know someone is waiting for you at the corner.  My main reason is so that I am protected from stranger danger and wild animals.

Mike and one of his running buddies

Alissa and her running buddies

We are still doing a little bit of "racing." It's the fun, social part of running for us and we like to compare our times from previous years. This summer our big running goal was to train for the inaugural Parowan Half Marathon. It was a very steep run, but also very beautiful. I'm not sure where I want to rank it... somewhere between 2nd favorite... or worst ever.

One of the pretty parts of the race

Mike starting the run.  It was a BEAUTIFUL morning at the Yankee.  I spent most of my morning standing in line for the bathroom instead of really enjoying it though.

Other races and paces included:
Mike- Utah Summer Games 10k (8:25)
Alissa- Utah Summer Games 5k (7:54)
Mike/Alissa- Enoch Freedom Run 10k (9:10, 10:10)
Mike/Alissa- Yankee Meadows Half Marathon (10:10)

Mike's first race of the season (it was still cold enough for blankets in June).

Of course, all this means we will be indoctrinating the kids. They had their first race in Cedar City. It was a "Main Street Mile" The kids all finished strong, and they all ran the whole race . Adelyn finished before any of us, so we don't know exactly, but we think she finished in about 9 minutes. Michael was about 11 minutes and Joey was about 17 minutes. 

Joey wanted to run the whole race.  I kept asking him if he wanted to walk and he kept saying no.  When the race was all finished and I saw how red his little face was, I realized what a strong little boy I have on my hands.  All the kids did awesome.  They really tried their hardest.

You know how there are lots of us that make goals to help better ourselves? And some of those goals get checked off the list, some fall off, and some are just there perpetually? Well, I can't figure out where running fits in. It's one of the goals that got checked off the list when we ran a marathon. But now we just keep running. It's like, like... like it worked; the goal to change our lifestyle worked.  Runners... it's what we are.