Matthew's Birthday and Spartan Race!

Well... I'm only a month late, but better late than never, right? June 9th is Matthew's birthday... It was also the same day as the Bear Lake Half Marathon, so if you ask me, I'd say his birthday sucked, but he was sweet as always and said it was great. I ordered most of his presents off of the internet... I just feel like I have no time for shopping anymore! But I was disappointed because only one of them got there in time... So I made him a card, he opened the one present he got, and then we had to rush off to the race! I was so excited to get him a remote control helicopter, and he was excited when he got it, but then it didn't freaking work!! I was so upset... We returned it and got another one and then the remote on that one was messed up. Freaking depressing... :( So we have received a refund for that one, and I'm trying to decide if we want to go for the best out of 3... We'll see. One of these days we are going to find the time to go out to the Gaucho Grill too! It is a Brazilian BBQ place here in Logan that we have been dying to try. We were supposed to go on his birthday but... again, the race got in the way. Luckily, the day of his birthday he got to run a half marathon, go golfing with my dad and brothers, and... I don't really know what else. Another good thing is the weekend before, his mom made his favorite orange cake for him. thank goodness for good mothers! I tried to make it for him last year (about a week after we got married) and I failed miserably with the frosting! That will always be a fabulous memory of Matthew telling me the frosting wasn't ruined and trying to fix my awful frosting. So this year, I just made a different kind of cake instead of trying to make the good kind. I did made the homemade frosting recipe from his mom (not the orange one, just the regular vanilla) and I am slowly getting better at it! YAY! See the pictures of the cake celebration here:

My hubby is getting too old! The box of candles only comes with 24 candles... He has outgrown that, so I decided to be a cheapskate and get creative instead!

My little hottie with his cake. :)

I always make him make a wish. I doubt he really does it, but at least he pretends for me!

And he blows them out! :)

I seriously have the greatest husband in the world. I was so bummed that I couldn't do anything super exciting for his birthday (we seriously just haven't had time), but he has been SO easygoing and so sweet about it. He is such a hard worker and makes me laugh every single day. I make fun of him for being such an "old man" all of the time, but he still has 50x more energy than me! I don't know where I would be without him in my life. I am so glad I found someone who I can have so much fun with and who makes me so happy! I love that old man. :)

To stay on the subject of Matthew... on June 30th, he had his race that he has been waiting forever for! It is called the Spartan Race. For those of you who have never hear of this race... Holy cow!! It is intense! It's basically a half marathon mud run. Sound fun? No. This is not your average mud run. It is 12 miles and has about 25-30 obstacles. Some of these obstacles include: climbing over walls, climbing up ropes, net walls, carrying a bucket full of rocks and sand up a hill, tying your feet together and jumping up a hill into tires the whole way, shooting a gun, throwing a spear, "run" through mud pits that are seriously deeper than your waist, climb up a hill under barbed wire in a mud pit, etc... And if you screw any of these obstacles up or can't complete them? 30 burpies. Haha Matthew is amazing! He only had to do burpies twice for missing the target on the stupid gun shoot and for slipping off of a wall that was practically IMPOSSIBLE to get across, especially for someone his height. Haha he was running this race in like 95-98 degree weather! Holy cow, I would have freaking passed out! But he did so good and he finished it faster than I finished my half with just straight running. Haha he is way too good. It was so fun to watch him race and watch him do something that was actually hard for him. He did so good! He is always looking for "the next hardest thing"... It is seriously sickening. So what is next on his agenda? Practically the two hardest things I think anyone can do in their life... a full Ironman and an ultra-marathon (100 miles). Yes, I am married to one of THOSE people. He seriously won't stop until he has done everything he can do. He has already done a half Ironman and I thought that was amazing. The thought of a full Ironman freaks me out though... Who does that!? I guess we'll see what comes next for him... Until then, here are some pictures from the Spartan Race!

Just chatting before the race

And so it begins!

Coming out of the first 4 mile loop

Kinda far away, but that's him in the middle climbing the rope. He reached the top at the same time as the guy next to him, but he just reached up with his way long arms. :)

Coming out of the second 4 mile loop

Heading up the mud hill. It's just a picture of his butt though. :)

Coming towards the finish line! YAY!

Doing Burpies... :(

It's over!!!

I wouldn't touch him... haha

Haha I love this picture with his parents... :)

My Spartan!! :)

Bear Lake Half Marathon 2012

Ok, so remember how I was REALLY good at blogging for a while there while I was training? Well... I didn't keep up with that very well... But I am here now for an update! On June 9, we ran the Bear Lake Half Marathon. It was SO much fun to run with Nicole and Angie and accomplish something with both of them. Running with them definitely made the race go by so much faster. I can't even imagine having to run it by myself. We chatted (mostly) the whole time and were so excited and kept each other going. I think we all took turns going through the "just go ahead and leave me" phase... I actually felt really good though and did better than I thought I would.We were like a minute over our goal finishing time too, so I'd say that's pretty good. I mean, if you average one minute out over 13 miles, that basically means your pace was like 4 seconds slower than you'd hoped for. Can't complain about that... Haha  It was a lot of fun though and I was so happy with all of the support! Basically my entire family was there to cheer us on (Dustin couldn't be there because of school), I had 4 siblings running in it with me, my in-laws were there, and then Matthew and my sister-in-law Trisha ran in it too! Overall, it was such a fun race and even more fun because of the time it created for me to spend with my family.

Matthew and his sister, Trisha, after kicking trash and finishing the race. Trisha took first in her age group!!

Trisha was running in her very first half marathon as well, and she did SO good!! She was a collegiate cross-country runner at UVU, but has taken some time off from seriously running to have 2 kids (I know, she totally doesn't look like she has had 2 children! She looks amazing!!) Well, Matt decided he was going to run it with her to give her someone to run with and motivate her and everything. (That poor girl... he is a beast to run with!! Haha just kidding, I love him.) They did so freaking awesome!! They finished in like 1 hour and 42 minutes! Trisha took first place in her age group and Matt took third in his, which also means Trisha basically took third place in Matt's age group... Freaking awesome! What kind of a family did I marry into?? Haha I wonder that every day of my life... I have to work freaking hard to try to compare to them, that is for sure! But I love my entire in-law family. They are such amazing people and so supportive.

Angie, Nicole, and I coming up on the finish line. Haha I look like I'm going to DIE!!

After finishing the race! :)

When Nicole, Angie, and I were about a mile out, I saw Matthew running towards us. It was kind of nice to have him there for about the last mile. Nicole and Angie kind of got the "Will someone please tell Matthew to stop talking" theory, but that's what I trained with the whole time! That's what I have been used to, so I finally have started to feel like it is somewhat motivating... Haha It was nice to have someone tell us about how much further we have to go and where the finish line was. It was so fun finishing that race even though we all  got pretty tired at the end. The weird thing was, it was kind of an emotional thing after working SO hard for something and pushing your body to what you feel could be its limit, finishing and being done is pretty emotional. I feel so proud of myself and my family. After every injury I've been through in my life and making the decision to quit soccer to try to save my knees, it was so nice to accomplish something that seemed to big to me such a short time before. The longest I had even run before meeting Matthew... about 2 miles. The longest I had ever run before deciding to train for a half marathon... 5 miles. I never thought I could do it, but I did and I am so happy about that!! :) Now... Angie and I (and anyone who would like to join us!) are training for a FULL marathon... September 15th, baby!! Top of Utah Marathon, here we come!! Wish me luck, training thus far has been pretty brutal and I am pretty tired on my Saturday runs, but I might as well do it now while I'm already half way there. AHHHHH!!!!

All of the people in my family who ran (L-R) Matthew, me, Angie, Nicole, Ang, and Josh. WOOHOO!!

Like I said, it was so much fun training with a bunch of members of my family and having a goal we were working towards together. I remember Josh calling me after I told him to sign up for it... He had just barely realized how far a half marathon was ("I always knew a marathon was 26 miles, but I didn't realize this would be... half... that..." haha good one, Josh!). Then he proceeded to pull the "I'm not a distance runner, I was always a sprinter! Speed and power, not long distances!!". Yeah, I pulled that one too... Haha but guess what? Ang and Josh signed up too and they freaking did it too? And guess what else? I think they are addicted as well! Haha they are already looking for another race to sign up for... LOVE it!!

Matthew and I after the race. Love this guy!

I guess the last thing I have to talk about is my wonderful husband! Goodness, this guy is awesome!! I loved running with my family during the race and chatting with them while we were training... I loved the feeling I had crossing the finish line knowing I had completed such an awesome thing. I loved training and realizing that running is such a therapeutic thing and helped me really understand my body so much more.... But what I loved the most was finding a love for something my husband has loved all along. I loved going on long runs with him (he even woke up early to run with me on Saturday mornings). I loved sharing a common interest and finding something that we could spend time together doing. Sure, he is a MUCH better runner than me, he is incredible, but he still ran with me at my pace most days unless I went without him. He was such a support to me and has always told me he believes in me and he knows I can do it. Anyone can tell you that, but there is something about it coming from your husband that makes it so much more meaningful. A million other people could tell me that they are proud of me and that I did great, but as soon as Matthew tells me he's proud of me... THAT is what makes it all worth it. :)

Anyway, I think that's it! For now... I still have lots more updates to come! Hopefully today, so stay tuned! Moral of the story is, find something that makes you happy and do it. Find something that makes you work hard, something you never thought you'd be able to do, and do it! There is no better feeling! :) And if nothing else, find something that your husband likes doing that you think you hate, and do it with him! It is kind of fun and I think they have lots of fun teaching you how to do something they excel at. Anyway, off my soapbox!

Until next time!