HALF MARATHON

HELLO WORLD! Yesterday was SUCH a beautiful day in the lovely Salt Lake City, Utah! The high (according to my phone) was 63 degrees! And yeah if you don't know the date, it was FEBRUARY 25! Not only was it 63 degrees, but it felt like it was in the 70's! (If you were standing in the beautiful sun, which wasn't hard with no clouds!)

This picture was taken by Kaylee!

Yesterday was also a day of firsts. Really only one first but it is so exciting to me that I am going to blog about it! If you couldn't guess by the title of my post, me, Ashley Christine Peterson, registered for her first EVER half marathon! That's right! Its the Salt Laky City Marathon, Half Marathon, Bike race and 5K. It is going to be awesome!

So lets talk about how this exciting event began. Once I had babies I gained a lot of weight… really most of it was put on in the pregnancy of my second baby, Alyvia. (A-Liv-E-UH) Anyways to get to the point, I just did NOT want to look like that for the rest of my life, so I began running. About 8 weeks after I'd given birth, with the okay from my doctor, I started to run. The first week was BY FAR the worst! I couldn't run 10 yards without feeling like my lungs were going to explode from my chest.

This is the only picture I have of myself right after I had her.

It was hard to continue running, when before I had children, I could go weeks without running and still be able to run at least 2 miles without having any problems. Thankfully with the help of my 2 friends, Heather and Brooke, who would wake up at 6am with me every Monday, Wednesday and Friday and run with me, I was able to keep going!

Heather and I did not purposefully wear the same shirt.

11 weeks after Alyvia was born, I ran my first 5K in about 34 minutes. (I know that's not the best time, but I didn't come in last place, so I was happy with myself!) Now 8 months and 3 days after that amazing day I registered for my first half marathon! And it feels SO good! Not only do I feel so proud of myself for actually running but my body feels great too! I love running! It gives me such a big self esteem boost! Not only have I realized that I can push myself to do hard things, but when your done you feel on top of the world! I can not wait until I run this half marathon! I can do it! And starting my official training on the most beautiful day in all of February in the history of time, was the greatest time to start!