First Marathon Ever!!!

When I told people I was running my first full marathon, 90% of the time I got the same reaction:  "What?  Really?  I thought you ran marathon's all the time!"

For that very reason (combined with many others) I decided I had to run a marathon.

Now, when I tell people I ran my first full marathon last weekend, they look at me and say, "What?  Really?  I thought you had run several or ran them all the time!" (That just happened Friday afternoon with 2 ladies I was talking to.  They both said it!)

At least now I can say I ran one.

Lane would like me to say that is the only one.

Unfortunately, that will probably not be the case.

You see, I have this disease.  It's called the "I can do it better" disease.  This disease doesn't come up in competition with other people, though.  Strangely, when competing against other people or friends, many times my mental conversation goes something like this: "You don't have to beat them, just stay up with them.  Keep them in your sights."  Or it says, "Wow, they are really fast!  Good for them, I'll just do my thing, because there is always going to be someone faster, better (and skinnier- how did that get in here?) than you!"

I'm really OK with being pretty mediocre at everything.

BUT!  When I do a race, when I finish, if I feel I could have been faster/stronger/better, I have to do another one to prove I can!  I want to beat myself, thus the "I can do it better" disease.

So, for my own posterity, here is the play by play of my first, but probably not last, marathon:

JUNE 9, 2012


The alarm sounds at 2:45 a.m. My friend Lisa Wallace and I wake up bright eyed, and bushy-tailed (my dad's saying) ready to go run my first and her second marathon. We get dressed, pack our bag, make sure everything is in order, and drive the 2 miles down the street to the parking lot to meet the busses that will take us up the canyon.  The last bus left at 4:15 a.m., so no sleeping in that morning!  Us and 7,000 other crazy people were ready to go.  We ride about 45 mins. up Provo Canyon and through a small town called Wellsville.  We are dropped off at a cow field with rows of port-a-potties, and some fire pits to snuggle up around and keep warm.  It is a beautiful morning, and expected to hit a high of only 75.  Perfect day!!!

I counted about 50 port-a-potties!

As the sun peaks over the mountains from the east, the excitement starts to build in the air.  Everyone is encouraged to line up according to how fast you think you will run the race.

This brings to mind yet again, what will be my plan?  We listened to some pros lecture the day before.  They said, "hydrate, hydrate, hydrate" and don't start too fast if this is your first marathon.  You will hit the wall and die.  I had heard that so many times from many people.  I also was concerned about the elevation difference.  I live at about sea level, and the race was at about 5-6,000 ft.

So, in my head I thought my best best time could be 4 hours, my realistic time 4:15, and my worst time 4:30.  I also decided I would drink water and powerade and walk 10 seconds at every water station.  They said what you don't do in the beginning to save seconds can cost you lots of minutes at the end in cramping, dehydration, "the wall", etc.  I didn't want that.

Standing behind the 4 hour finish pacer.

But then I start thinking about how I know myself.  I need to start fast because then my body will keep that pace.  It is hard for me to start slower and make myself speed up.  Plus, the first 8 miles were supposedly downhill (I later found that those downhills also had 5 good uphills!!!)

So, we got behind the 4 hour pacer, and took off with the shot of the gun.  Well, wouldn't you know it, 1 mile in, I have to pee.  Are you kidding me??? I never have had to do that!  Nerves? maybe. Pre-race hydration drinks?  Maybe.  Whatever it is, I need to pee.  However, there is a line at the port-a-potties.  So I continue on to mile 2, 3, 4, and finally at mile 5 I don't care.  I wish I was a guy who could just run to the side and pee behind a tree like so many guys did!  I decide to stand in line, and Lisa keeps on going. I stopped my watch to see what time difference it would make for me (in the end it was only 4 minutes.)

I do my business as fast as possible, and take off running again.  I feel good.  It is a beautiful morning, the sun is coming up over the mountains, there are horses running around, mountains around, things are green, I have music in my ears and I feel really good! 

Me and some of the other crazies on a beautiful morning marathon!

At about mile 12 I am running up a hill and see Lisa up ahead.  I caught her!  Unfortunately I still haven't found the 4 hour pacer.  We rejoice in our reunion and start chatting while we run.  Lisa is feeling OK.  At mile 13 I turn to her and jokingly say, "Hey!  We only have to run 13 miles!  That is a half marathon!  Want to come with me?  Let's do it!"

She pulls out 2 Excedrin for pain, and I asked if she happened to have any extra?  I thought maybe my legs won't hurt toward the end if I take a pain killer.  She said she had a couple, so I took some.  We run another mile, and I start feeling really good!  It is downhill, my legs are basically numb, and I want to kick it!  I think that was Ecstasy and not Excedrin she gave me!

I pick up the pace a bit and Lisa gives me the OK to leave her.  I feel good.  I'm singing AIDA and Wicked and Justin Bieber and Carrie Underwood and Taio Cruz and Jason DeRulo and Taylor Swift all down the canyon.  I hit mile 20 and feel great and pass what used to be Bridal Veil falls.  I pull out my phone and snap a picture.

I start to wonder when the "wall" is going to hit.  I feel good!  I am at the end of the canyon and have 4 miles to go until I'm done.  I can't believe I am almost done with this marathon, and I feel great!  I'm breathing fine, no problems there at all.  Legs feel great.  I pick it up a little.  I keep playing "I pass you, you pass me" with various runners.  I hate that unintentional game.

3 miles to go and the bottom of my foot starts to pull a little.  I've never had that before, but it doesn't hurt or bother me too bad.  I run past the last 2 water stations because I really feel good and don't want to stop and walk.  I run past BYU and all the memories I have of going there.  I get to downtown and have 1 mile left.  I can't believe I still haven't hit my wall.  I realize I'm not going to hit any wall.  I am going to finish this smiling!  I get a little emotional as I begin to think that I just reached a goal I set for myself 3 years ago that I never in a million years thought I ever would have set for myself in my life!  I think of my great friend Lisa and how she was willing to step in and train with me and run the race with me.  I NEVER could have done it without her!  I don't have enough self motivation to do that!!!  I ran my first marathon at, ahem, um ...... 40. 

 I pick up the pace a little more and cross the finish line with an official time of 4:11:54.  I look around in awe, and want so bad to hug someone or talk to someone but there is no one there.  Just me.  So I smile, congratulate myself, pinch myself to be sure it's real and bask in the fact that I just did it. 

The legs and feet that served me well that day!!

My time without the potty break! :)

Then I immediately realize that this will not be my last marathon.  I could have gone faster, I could have done more, I didn't leave it all out there.  I try not to be disappointed by this.  I did a good, safe, first race.  I didn't injure myself, I didn't have a horrible experience, it was a good "maiden voyage".  But now I do know I can't call it good with that.  I have to do another one and break 4 hours.  Why?  I don't know, I'm just crazy I guess!  It's that "I can do better" disease.

Lisa and I at the end.  What a great friend!

Conner's Memorial Weekend Baptism!!

I can't wait until I'm 8, cause then I'll be baptized you see!  (words from a Primary baptism song)

Yup, Conner's long awaited day finally arrived.  He was sure he was the last boy on the planet to be baptized!  (All his good friends are a little older than him.)

We had our own baptism service all to ourselves, which was very nice!  My mom and dad flew down for the special occasion too.  That was a big honor for us.  We had some nice talks on Baptism and the Holy Ghost, as well as Savannah and all her friends singing songs about each one.  It was really a great, sweet meeting!

So here are the pictures we grabbed from the big day.

Gpa Forsgren, Uncle Bryce, and Gma and Gpa Cook

My handsome boys all ready to dunk Conner!

Finally!!!!

Everyone who came to share our special day.

The family picture, with one mad Addi.  There's always one to ruin the picture isn't there?

Grandma and Grandpa Forsgren 

Grandma and Grandpa Cook

Mom was there too!!

I LOVE my boy!!!

Happy Mother's Day to me! :)

It comes around every year and sadly, lots of mom's hate it!  I'm not talking about those birthdays after 30, I'm talking about Mother's Day!

I actually like it.  My husband and kids do a great job of letting me kind of take the day off and feel a little special. 

So, as I've grown accustomed to, I got my "surprise" breakfast in bed with a little addition this year.  Apparently I am not sneaking those Oreos in the morning alongside my protein shake very well.  I think I'm being sneaky, but perhaps all the crumbs in my teeth are giving it away? Ha! 

A quick snapshot with the kids that I love 99% of the time! :)

Of course they all got me some gifts and make me cry with their notes, etc.  They are awesome and I sure love them!  Lane even wrote another award-winning poem about when we met.  I am putting it here for our remembrance.

Mother's Day note for our kids

I saw her from my balcony, with cookies on a plate,

I felt intrigued to meet her, and we did through lucky fate.

I hopped into her minivan, en route for basketball-

Our roomies joined for intramurals, at BYU that Fall.

She seemed quite brash and mouthy, but she had a gift for sports

I liked the way she played the game, and wore a pair of shorts.

I took one for the team a while, I didn't ask her out

I kept the peace with her teammates, and made her stay in doubt.

 At last I couldn't wait it out  and took her for zuchini

Another suitor saw us there, I felt just like a weenie.

But it was worth it, we had launched, and soon we were a pair

I fell in love with frightening speed, after Kathryn cut my hair.

Christmas break we had to split like the Red Sea did for Moses

I tried to guard my newfound girl with phone calls and some roses  

When I returned to Utah, she had sewn me a Suns' blanket,

I knew right then she was the one, I didn't have to fake it.

12 more weeks flew by like nothing, and then I popped the question

She called me crazy, made me sweat and suffer indigestion.

At last she said those magic words and made me do a flip

We called my parents from a pay phone while my heart did skips.

And that is how we started, ending up today as six,

One proud dad with one great son, and four exotic chics.

I love your Mother like no other, she's the best thing in my life.

Happy mother's day my love, and thanks for being my wife!

Sometimes you just don't deserve someone so good, right? ( I'm talking about me getting Lane and not vice versa! :) ha!)

Happy 8th Birthday to my FAVORITE boy!!

Wow, where does the time go?
8 years ago, we were blessed with a beautiful, healthy baby boy.  I was so excited to get a boy, and I don't even have to tell you Lane was ecstatic about it!

He was induced 1 day before he was due, because I hadn't gone into labor with the last 2, and didn't really feel the need to birth another 1 week late 9 1/2 lb. baby like the last 2!!

Ironically, he was my smallest! 7 lbs. 13 oz.  But he was perfect and I couldn't love him more.  I do remember having a hard time not calling him sweetie, or princess or beautiful.  I had to switch to buddy and handsome.  I still 8 years later sometimes make the CARDINAL sin of calling his underwear "panties".  You wanna see someone freak out?  Yikes!!  He is all boy and I love it!!

Conner actually got to spend his birthday going camping on the father's and son's outing for church.  He had a blast, and Lane is sure he possibly caught a glimpse of him while they were up there. :)  He was with his little buddies the whole time playing in the forest and with fire.  Perfect combination, right?

We had a party at our park on Saturday.  He wanted a sports theme.  So, we had 12 little boys here playing speed on the basketball court, running timed soccer drills in the field, hitting balls in our baseball home run derby, and of course killing each other with squirt guns and wet squish balls. (It was only 95 degrees out that afternoon! :) )

My friend Heather made these amazingly cute and delicious cupcakes.  Pearls before swine I say!  Next time I'm going with cheap cake and the good cupcakes for adults!!! Not a single boy ate the cupcakes!  They all wanted the cheap ice cream cake from Safeway!

Conner and Coop!

Basketball Speed - they take it very seriously!

Home run derby

Line for the pinata!

Hitting for candy!

This is what happens when there are no forks to eat the ice cream cake! :)

Happy Birthday my Conner boy!!!

Now we get to look forward to his baptism in a couple of weeks!  He is so excited!

Surprise! Happy 50th Karrie!

It has been 6 years since the Forsgren girls got together, so I guess it was time that we raise some heck together somewhere and terrorize some poor place.  This time it was California!

My big sis Karrie turned the big 50 on April 19.  Wow.  If you ask me, her 50 looks really good!  She has had a rough life with a rough marriage that lasted 17 years.  She was divorced for 9 (I think) and now is so happily married to a wonderful guy and it is soooo good to see her truly happy!  She so deserves it!

Well it was mom's idea to get all of us girls to CA and surprise her and take off for a weekend together somewhere for all of our birthdays.  Evil plans were laid, and Karrie showed up at The Alamo restaurant thinking she was having a nice dinner with Mark and leaving for a romantic weekend together.  Imagine her surprise (and probably a little disappointment) when she found us sitting there at the table, and was informed she would not be needing that cute little nightie she just bought and packed. ;)  (Though we did offer to have her model it for us - she passed on that!)

So, here's the pictoral on everything:

Mom thought it would be fun if we all wore some sort of hat. So we did!

A very surprised Karrie!

She was given a crown to wear for her hat.

All of us together.  Seriously, could we look any different from each other?

Everyone who was at the dinner

They give you a disgusting ice cream and make you wear a sombrero.  Sufficient embarrassment I think!

The California side

We found this fun cutout in the grocery store.  We were still a little hung over from all the Mexican food we had eaten.

On of the many surprises mom had for us - wrap around towels with holes for the arms!  Fashion forward ladies!

Our awesome beach house in Oxnard

Breakfast at the local joint - yum!!

Dinner at Black Angus.  Yum again!

All of us in the beach house.

We talked, laughed, ate, laughed, ate, shopped, went to movies, ate, exercised, wished it was sunny, got pedicures, and ate.  We wished we were sitting on the beach getting tan, but Mother Nature didn't get the memo about sunny skies, and sent clouds, fog and even a little rain. Oh well.

We also went to a taping of the TV show "The Doctors"  We were seated right on the front row of the audience, so hopefully we will see ourselves when they air it!  It will air Friday, May 11.  It was the Mother's Day show.  We also got to tour the Paramount Pictures lot.  We saw Mr. Schuster (sp?) from Glee go walking by - they film there.  It was pretty cool, and a reminder of just how fake TV and Hollywood are!  Man, lots of tricks to make things look like what they aren't!

You know, we are all so different from each other, but it was fun to be together.  I love my mom and sisters and am so thankful for them all.  We all have our "trials" and things we are going through, but we all are surviving and thriving.  Hopefully we can do it again a little sooner than 6 years down the road!

Indian Wells 2012

For Christmas, waaayyyy back in December, Lane gave me 2 tickets to 2 days at the Indian Wells tennis tournament in March in Palm Springs, CA.  I was so excited as I've been wanting to go to this for a long time!  This is a great tourney to go to because all the big names are there.  Sometimes when you are on the lower level tournaments, the bigger players skip them, or only one or two of them come to play.  

For some reason, the top players really love this tournament, so I wanted to go see them in action!  What a great place, and lots of fun.  However, you do need to be a true tennis fan.  Lane came with me, and stuck through the whole first day happily, and ended up suffering through the second day.  He was tennis-ed out, but hung in there.  Thanks honey!

Course, this kinda helped:

Yes, that really is my husband playing Angry Birds on his I-pad after a long day of tennis.  Fine by me! 

You are really able to get up so close on some of the smaller courts!  We enjoyed a front row seat to see American Robbie Ginepri lose to some Russian guy.  We also happened to run into a friend of ours from BYU who lives in Idaho now, but was there watching the tennis because his son got to be one of the ball boys!  How cool is that?  I'm just thrilled that as I walked by me he recognized me still after all these years and stopped me to say hi!

Here's a little collage of all the fun.  Unfortunately I wasn't able to see Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal play a match as they weren't scheduled the two days we were there.  However, I did enjoy watching them on the practice courts!  They are RIGHT THERE!  It is crazy!  How I would have loved to be a professional tennis player.  Maybe in the next life, huh?

A sign of true love is a husband who will sit through all that with you and keep a smile on his face.  (And let you buy a cute tennis outfit in the cram-packed tennis store there too!)  He was a trooper.  Though we both agree I can go next year with the girls from my tennis team instead! :)

Taking a leap back in time to Christmas 2011

So you know how I've been complaining that I can't download pictures from my new camera onto the computer?  I finally bought the card reader that works, so I need to get these pictures up for  history's sake!

So, lets jump back to December when we were having a very Merry Christmas!  Geez, no desire to blog about this in April, that's for sure!

We took the annual trip to the temple Christmas lights.

We had our first live Christmas tree in probably 8 years!  I loved it!!!

I took the girls to see the Nutracker at Phoenix Symphony Hall.  Aaah, the ballet.  We are so refined!

I kept up my tradition of giving the kids a Christmas tree ornament every year that signify's something of that year.   (Addi got a Justin Bieber ornament since SHE is going to marry him!)

Conner and Savannah got to be Mary and Joseph at the Christmas Eve reading of the Christmas Story.

After Christmas, we took a trip to Utah to visit Grandma and Grandpa Forsgren!  Lots of fun, but not lots of snow! :(

We all went downtown to see the lights on temple square in Salt Lake too.  Nothing like being with cousins!  It was so fun!  We rode on the Trax, and did Grandma's I Spy book she made for us!

On of my favorite memories as a kid was my mom playing the piano and singing stories to us of the Mouse and the Lion, and Peter Rabbit in the garden.  I love seeing her do it with my kids now!  They LOVE the piano stories at Grandmas!

Christmas Day was celebrated at Kami and Lars' new house.  Had to get one picture of me and Lane together! :)

Bryce and Sara were the lucky recipients of our gag gift, as well as a good one.  Hope they tried out their new underwear! :) ha!