Oct. 5, 2024: One of the highlights of the year was running our first marathon!! So fun that we were able to do it together and so grateful for Nicole and Grandma and Grandpa for watching the kids for us to do it. Our months of marathon training all lead up to Soll Austria, this small quaint town in the foothills of the Austrian Alps. Neither of us had any idea what to expect about any of it, we were mostly just grateful to get the starting line unhurt and not sick. The nerves leading up to the race were partly to put to rest by our airbnb hosts which were the cutest older Austrian couple that had lived in Soll for over 50 years and were both avid outdoorsmen, having both ran this Soll marathon race and spent many a times in the mountains running in the summer and skiing in the winter. It was really inspiring to see their glow even in their old age that comes with a life of being active in the outdoors. They were the best. They were even planning on waking up to give us more running gear and poles to see us off but this year the race had the option to start 2 hours earlier than the official start time, which we did, so they missed us before we started, but we were still very touched. They also told us when we got home that they were tracking our bib numbers and rooting us on.
The night before the race, they mentioned due to the unseasonally cold and snow up in the mountains they were going to make a call in the morning if the full course could be ran or if the mountain portion would need to be cut short (they said they would make the decision based off of how cold and blue the lips were of the early runners coming into the mountains were haha). Thankfully it was all green-lights go in the morning and we were set for the full course. We ran the first couple miles together which was really fun and then met each other back at the finish line. Overall the race and the course was very difficult, probably even more so than we were expecting with a lot of uphill elevation gain and the mountain portion being a complete white-out with little/no visibility (apparently they say the views are stunning from up there, guess we'll have to go back and see for ourselves). We both unexpectedly enjoyed hot potatoes w/extra salt and soup both at the aid stations. The final 1 kilometer felt like 5K as it was all uphill in the snow and without poles made for a very slow, slippery finish, but finish we did :)
LOTS OF GREAT CARB LOADING IN THE ITALIAN DOLOMITES!!
Baller old guy crushing the race.
Marathon through Siberia.
Innsbruck airport might be my favorite ever.
Also grateful for such a miracle and tender mercy I want to remember about the race. To do this we have to rewind to two years ago when I was training for a summer marathon in the Netherlands. I have always enjoyed running, but when I started getting up there in the miles and long distances my stomach honestly couldn't handle it. Every run started to become a battle with my bowels and had to continually use the bathroom over and over again during the run and it was pretty awful, so much so that I decided I wouldn't run a marathon and didn't do the summer one as I hoped. It felt very running induced stomach issues and the minute I was running shorter distances I didnt have any issues.
Then here we are a year later and Nicole comes to live with us and offered to watch out kids for a trip. Riley decided we should do a marathon together. I wasn't thrilled with the idea, just because the previous year was such a struggle with training and my stomach not cooperating and goal not done. But decide we should and worst case, I will cheer him on for it! So the training begins and like clockwork when I start hitting the long distances my stomach just couldn't handle it. It was awful, but decide to keep going and would bring an entire roll of toilet paper each long run in my pack and hate to admit a few strangers have seen my bum behind bushes. Every run was pretty bad. It was pretty embarrassing and honestly dreaded the race a bit just because I didn't want to deal with the poops with an entire crowd cheering. The night before the race, I asked Riley for a priesthood blessing and then it was RACE TIME!!! The race was really great, there was a lot of pain and snow and elements and different struggles, but my stomach issues weren't an issue once the entire race!! My marathon miracle!! Thats really the only way to explain it, I never had a long long run without problems and a good run I only needed to go 2-3 times but the nothing the entire run!! Which is really great, because it was so cold I dont think I could of been able to pull up my pants ;)
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