MOAB

Ben and I headed down to Moab Friday morning for a fun filled weekend. He was planning on a mountain bike ride, and I was planning on running the Canyonlands 1/2 Marathon. My sister Jessica and my mom were heaven sent to help us out with our kids, so the weekend was set up to be perfect.


The only problem is that plans never quite go as you plan.


It rained/hailed right when we got down there, but luckily that cleared up so the guys could head out on their ride. While the guys were gone, we girls went and got our packets for the race and tried to find something interesting to entertain the kids with for over 4 hours. A library and a park, PERFECT! We spent tons of time at the library and then headed over to the park. Right as we were pulling into the park the phone rang. Tiffany answered and I kinda knew something had happened to my Benji.

8 miles into the bike ride Ben goes head over his handle bars and lands on his shoulder.

He definately feels like something is majorly wrong with his shoulder.

He has to hike 5 miles out back to the car.

Coby walked with Ben and Wade and Dave took 2 bikes each

I went and picked up Ben and Coby and we headed to the hospital. Ben and I headed in while the others went and got ready for dinner.

The boys jimmy-rigged this great wrap so his arm/shoulder could be totally still.

That bump on his shoulder is his bone actually floating/separated from the other bone.

If you ask me, it doesn't quite look like it is supposed to be like that.

The doctor came and looked at his shoulder (after we got his jacket off and his shirt CUT off), and they took x rays and the conclusion is . . . . . . . AC SHOULDER SEPARATION GRADE 3.

So the best thing the doctor could do for us is put him in a sling, give him some pain killers and tell us we need to go and see an orthopedic surgeon. So there you go, my new title will by NURSE, along with all of the other job titles that I am currently trying to juggle.

CANYONLANDS 1/2 MARATHON

I was totally psyched for the run on Saturday morning. Except for the lack of sleep from the night before (poor Ben was snoring and I didn't have the heart to wake him), I was ready and excited.

This is exactly what the day looked like. Beautiful and sunny! It was such an empowering thing to see all the others runners. Having so many people around me running definately kept me going. It was such a great feeling.

Here we are before the race. It was so much fun to be down there with

these 3 other cute girls!!!!!

So I just have to say that nobody got my picture when I originally came in, so Coby had me jump back in after I had finished and got a few shots.

Side note . . . . I need to work on my running stanse for pictures.

Ann and I jumped back in when we saw Tif and Summer coming.
Fun to see us all running together.

So a preview of the race . . . . .

I ran with Ann until about mile 8 when I had to make a little potty break.

After I jumped back in and started running I caught up with Ann around mile 9, but unfortunately her IT bands were killing her, so she had to walk. I offered to walk with her, but she just said to go on ahead. It wasn't til mile 11 that my own legs were starting to bother me. Mile 11 was the longest mile of the race. I walked a bit, and when I got to mile 12 I knew the end was really close. It was such a great thing to come down the home stretch and see my cute hubby, there watching and waiting for me. That gave me the extra boost to get to the finish line that much quicker.

There were a couple times where I was close to tears while I was running. I wasn't about to cry because of the pain, but just because of the accomplishment I was making. Really, the most I had run in training was 6 miles, so the fact that I was running over twice that was a great feeling. The fact that my baby was only just over 4 months was another tear jerker. I just had a baby and I had challenged myself to run this race, and even though it was hard, I was doing it!!! I really was ok running until mile 10, but I figured I only had just over 3 more miles. 10 miles of running without much problem is huge for me, even though I wasn't running way fast. I just kept telling myself that the only thing I had to do was keep running. Don't walk, just keep running, even if it wasn't way fast. So that's what I did.

All in all I LOVED IT!!!!

My final time was right around 2:22.

I was really feeling the pain of running that far after the race, but it is something that I would do again. I even told Ben I would love to come back down to Moab next year and run again. It was one of the most beautiful runs I have ever taken.

Even though Ben got hurt, Moab was a great weekend away. There aren't very many times that I can take over 2 hours to go running and feel ok about it. Thanks to my Mom and Aunt Jessica for helping me out with the kids, I could take that time and Ben and I could have a weekend to ourselves.