Dam Race

We went up to Rexburg this weekend with my mom and Popcan to run the Teton Dam 1/2 marathon. Emily and Alejandro, and Sharla and Ben were also running it. We had a great time seeing where Emily and Ale live and having an Idaho experience. We got up there Friday night and had the free potato dinner that they had for all the runners. It was a pretty good meal. After that we went and drove the route so we could see what we were in for the next morning. The route was mostly through potato farms and quite a bit of it was uphill. So, it's a good thing that hills are pretty unavoidable to run where we are. Saturday was Emily's birthday, so we had cake and opened presents that night.
The race didn't start the next day until 7:30, so we didn't have to get up too early. Mom dropped us off at the start, and we got ready to go. We were grateful that morning didn't have any rain! The weather turned out to be pretty nice. Alejandro left us within the first half mile of the race. Dave, Popcan, Emily and I stayed pretty close together during the race and felt pretty good, despite all the uphill. Dave's knees started to hurt towards the end, and I got permission to leave him with one mile to go, to go try and catch Emily and Popcan, who had gotten a little bit ahead of us. Every marathon I have run with Popcan (which is 3 of them), I have slowed him down by at least an hour, but when it comes to the end, I always have a little bit of energy to sprint and not let him beat me. The last mile of this race, I was cruising to catch up to them. They didn't know I was so close behind them, and I didn't want them to find out until we crossed the finish. At mile 13, I really had to run hard, or else they would have beat me. With about a yard to the finish line, I totally surprised them by crossing the finish line about a foot ahead of them. It was awesome! Popcan had even just gotten done telling Emily that he didn't know how I do it at the end, and can always seem to beat him. When I got in front of them, he turned to her and said, "See!" I had lots of fun doing that! It was fun to do the race with all of us! I think that I will be content to just run half marathons from now on. They're my favorite distance. Dave on the other hand decided Triathlons were funner!
We swam at our hotel afterward, which feels good for your sore legs. We ate lunch at this Mexican restaurant that's on a bus. We then headed to Idaho Falls and went to see the Titanic exhibit at the Museum of Idaho. It was pretty cool, and they had a lot of artifacts and stories about people from the Titanic. When you walk in, you get a "Boarding Pass" for someone on the ship. At the end, you find out if you survived or not. We all died, except for my mom. We ate dinner at the Snake Bite, then drove back home. It was a fun little trip out of town!