“The miracle isn't that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start.”

- John Bingham

I felt so good during this race! Maybe the best I've ever felt running, which is surprising considering the lack of training that took place. The last couple of miles my legs felt like jell-o, but I didn't have any major cramps or pain other than the pain in my toes. The tip of my second toe on both feet is purple and still numb almost 12 hours later. Our average pace was about 12 min 40 sec, but I know we killed the first 3 miles. After that we got into a good steady pace until about mile 10 when Heather's feet started cramping and stopped her in her tracks a few time. We took it a little easier after that. She was in a lot of pain. We finished with a time of 2 hours 48 minutes. I'm so happy about that. I didn't have any idea what to expect but I was really hoping for under 3 hours and we totally did that. I enjoyed this race so much more than the triathlon, where I felt like I was going to die. But after the tri I wasn't sore at all and after the half I'm sooo very sore. I'll be surprised if I can walk tomorrow. It's weird. Anyway, here's a little bit about the race-

SLACKER HALF MARATHON
The highest DOWNHILL half marathon in the country.
beginning at 10,630 feet and traveling over a rolling hill descent to 8400 feet! The half marathon begins at Loveland Ski Area and travels the first five miles through a Forest Service area of wetlands and natural waterfalls on a non-motorized paved bike path built to sustain the weight of an ambulance! The second 4.4 miles travel from Bakerville to Silver Plume along a paved frontage road with amazing views of the Continental Divide and mining remnants. The last portion of the trail & the 4-Mile race travels from Silver Plume to Georgetown on a paved bike trail (and paved road) with scenic views of the Georgetown Loop Railroad and the largest Bighorn Sheep herd in the State! The race ends in downtown Georgetown where there are more freebies than you know what to do with!

info taken from http://www.slackerhalfmarathon.com/

The whole race route was beautiful, especially the first 5 miles. I would totally do this race again, however, it did not give me any desire to do a full marathon at this time. :)

Cornum Family Reunion 2011

We just had our first semi-annual Hal and Mary Cornum Family Reunion!! We went camping up in the mountain near my parents home in southern Colorado. It was a lot of fun to hang out with family for a few days. I don't know if I have any pics of Tysen's family because they were only there for one day, but they were there and it was great to see them.

Sam survived 3 whole nights in a tent which is a record for as long as I have know him. He did get a bit grouchy at the end but for the most part he was a trouper. The first night the wind blew like crazy and no one got much sleep. The second night it was so cold and we were woken up by the mooing of cows. For the third night Sam went to town and bought extra blankets, the cows were gone and the wind wasn't blowing so it wasn't too bad.

The kids had a great time playing in the river, hiking, riding 4 wheelers, chasing cows and just playing and getting dirty with their cousins.

Each family was assigned either a breakfast or a dinner. We made breakfast on Saturday morning. I found this recipe for Omelets in a bag. They were really good but took a little extra time because it was had to keep the water boiling outside in the wind, but still so easy and really good.

The water fall that we hiked to was the same water fall that Sam and I hiked to with my family when we were just dating. We took a picture almost identical to a picture we took there almost 14 years ago. It was fun. I'll try to post the two pics later.

Any way, there it is, the Cornum Family Reunion.

Tomorrow is the half marathon. I didn't want to do three race posts in a row. You would think by reading my blog lately that all I do is run but the fact is I'm totally unprepared for this half marathon. Training has been sporadic at best, so wish me luck and I'll tell you all about it soon.

Warning: This post may contain whining and complaining.

Phrases like "I hate you!" and "This is the worst day of my life!!" were being thrown around during the race. Now that I have 36 hours between myself and the tri I can say I'm glad I did it, but at the time I would have been glad to fall over dead to get out of having to finish it. It sucked people! Let me break it down.

The swim was hard. I knew it would be since I had only trained twice for it, in a pool, never in open water. But honestly it wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be. On a scale from 1 to 10, 1 being- I could do that in my sleep, and 10 being- I'd rather shoot myself in the head than ever do that again, I would give the swim a 7.

The bike. I also knew it would be difficult. In fact, it was the part I was most concerned about. To train I took a total of 3 spin classes and they in no way prepared me for the conditions of this race. The bike portion was 16 miles, (just as a side note, the next person who says "It's only 16 miles", "That's a short ride", "16 miles, that's easy", or any other version of that comment, I swear I'm going to slap their grandma. You've been warned!) 16 miles of monster hills, hills of which I mostly walked up... in cycling shoes. If you're not familiar with cycling shoes, they have a metal clip on the bottom of them that clips into the petal of the bike. They are made for cycling. They are not for walking. As I approached a hill I tried to build up as much speed as possible to carry me up the hill, but no amount of pedaling was enough. At some point on the hill, usually pretty early on, the bike would slow and then just stop, at which time I had no choice but to get off and walk up the hill. So on that same scale of 1 to 10 I would have to give the bike a big, fat, bloody 10! I should mention that it had nothing to do with the bike I used either. The bike was awesome! Thanks Shay! It was just me that was not so awesome.

Any who, then came the run. It's worth mentioning that when I got back from the bike ride 95% of the participants were already done with the run and either loading up to go home or sitting around enjoying their post race sandwiches. And I was about 95% sure I was going to skip the run, until I saw my cheering section. My parents were there and my brother Trent and his wife and kids, but the ones that got me were my boys. They were standing by the fence at the transition area cheering "Good job mom! You can do it mom!" and little McKay saying "You're da best mom evor!" So of course I had to finish. It was hot by then, and it was a pretty rugged trail run but I walked a lot of it and over all I would give it a 5.5.

I finished of the race by having an emotional break down. Tears of pain? Tears of joy that it was over? Tears of embarrassment that I was almost the last person across the finish line? All of it!

I figure that if you average the rankings from each event, taking into consideration that the bike portion took twice as long as the other two so I counted it double, the total experience would receive a 10.83! For reals ya'll, it sucked!

In the end it was a great bonding experience with my brother, Carson, who made me do it and whom I have since forgiven. It's one more thing I can check of my list. And regardless of my super embarrassing time, which I am not going to share, I am proud of myself for finishing it.

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I decided to post my official stats, so here they are:

bib number: 217
overall place: 200 out of 202
division place: 29 out of 29
gender place: 103 out of 105
time: 2:38:40
swim (500 m): 19:39
t1: 3:51
bike (16 miles): 1:29:00
t2: 2:56
run (3 miles): 43:14

Bolder Boulder 2011

On Memorial Day we got up bright and early and headed to the bus which was headed to Boulder. Crazy place Boulder is and the Bolder Boulder is a crazy race. No one was handing out bacon this year but along the race route there were people handing out beer and cupcakes and organic Doritos, cotton candy, marshmallows and free hugs! Not that I could have eaten any of the good food without puking but it's fun just to see all of the people having fun with the race. Next year I think I plan to walk it at a leisurely pace and partake of all of the goodness the event has to offer, okay not the beer but for sure the cotton candy and hopefully there will be bacon. I also plan to do the slip and slide and get a free hug from everyone who is offering one. Any way, our official times were:

Bryce-59:03

Natalie-1:25:03 (that included a 4 minute bathroom break)

I looked at all of the results by age today and it turns out that I got my trash kicked by a whole bunch of people as young as 6 years old all the way up to 84 years old. How ever, there were two 85 year old people and I beat them both, so BOO YEAH!!

They list the top 30 men and top 30 women in each age group and Bryce was less than 1 minute behind the #30 boy in his age group which I think is great. There are some dang fast kids out there though, the #1 10 year old boy finished in just under 34 minutes. That's about how fast I can fun a 5K and the Bolder Boulder is 10K. I don't know how they do it. Pretty Amazing!