Marathon

I'm a runner! On the 19th Chris and I went down to Mesquite Nevada to run a marathon we had been training for for months. We started off really fast, mostly because the first 13 miles were all down hill. Once we hit mile 13, though, there was plenty of up hill. Unfortunately, all the hills on the course really hurt Chris knee and he was only able to make it to mile 22 before he had to stop. I kept running and was able to finish the marathon in under 4 hours, which was the goal. I even came in second in my age group, which sounds really impressive, but it's not so impressive considering the fact that there were only 9 people in my age group.
This first picture is Chris and me at the beginning of the race. We're both looking pretty rested and happy to be running.

This next picture is around mile 17 when Chris' knee started to hurt him. The look of pain on his face is a pretty good indication that he wasn't doing well.

After a little stretching and rest, Chris' knee started to feel better. I wonder if he'll try another marathon.


Here's me at the end of the race, happy to be finished and holding up a 2 for second place. Go me!

A Few Events

I've finally stopped procrastinating and uploaded my photos to my computer. We've had a fun last couple of months. The girls in my family and I went on our annual Shakespeare Festival trip. I had to miss one of the plays because of work this year, but the three I was able to see were great. This year, for the first time, Jason's wife Jennifer joined us, which was so fun. Pretty soon we're going to have to reserve a whole row of seats for all the Cutler women.


The other exciting event that happend recently was my little (I mean younger because there's not a whole lot littler than Joe who towers over us at 6'4") brother Joe returned from his mission in New Jersey. He's still the same gentle person he's always been, but with a new perspective. We're all so proud of him.

More Running

We've been at it again. Actually, all the running we've been doing lately has been to train for the Las Vegas Ragnar Relay Race, which was this past weekend. Chris and I ran two half marathons to prepare for it, one in Spanish Fork and one in Layton, and we did well in both. We're not really concerned too much with time at this point, so the fact that our times were relatively quick is just an extra bonus. The Ragnar was 187 miles of adventure. Chris and I were in van 2 of the Freeloader team, the team that won the free entry because of Brett Dunham's sweet mustasch. It was a lot of fun with lots of running and very little sleep.

Team Mullet

The majority of my family came up this past weekend to run the Dirty Dash. Last year was the first year I ran the dash, and it was a lot of fun. In fact, I told my family what a good time we had and they decided that they wanted to give it a shot. We came up with a team name, "Team Mullet: Business in the Front, Party in the Back" and we all bought fake mullets and leggings and shorts for the occasion, well all of us except Chris who had me shave his hair into a mullet just for the race. We encountered far more obstacles this year than last year, getting dirtier in the first mile than we did through nearly the whole race last year, but the essence of the race was the same, a lot of laughing, a lot of mud, a lot of people running around like crazy people. What Fun!

San Francisco

Chris and I went to San Francisco a few weeks ago as we continued on with our efforts to see every baseball park in the country. We saw the Giants and the Athletics play in their respective parks and also got to tour the city, which was a lot of fun. One of the funnest things we did while we were there was run across the Golden Gate Bridge. We ran across it relatively early in the morning while the top was still shrouded in fog but you could still see the bay. It was idyllic. Unfortunately it's too hard to carry a camera with you when you run for 10 miles, so I don't have any pictures of that beautiful morning. However, below are pictures of us in front of the baseball parks.


Apart from our trip, we've been keeping busy training for some long races by running some shorter races. We recently ran the Legacy Parkway Midnight 10K, which was a lot of fun, and, of course, the Waffle Run, our annual 4th of July race. We're planning on a few half marathons in the near future before our two long ones.

When People Ask...

...if I'm a runner, I always say no, but it's getting harder to say that. Chris and I have been in a few races over the past few months, and we're planning to enter more, all to get ready for the Las Vegas Ragnar Relay Race coming up in October. We ran in the Law Day 5K, the Midnight 5K in St. George, the Fight for Air Run (10K) and we're signed up for a few more races before Ragnar. I never wanted to start running, I sort of fell into it, but I've found that it's been a terrific distraction from certain things.



In other happenings, both my youngest brother and Chris' youngest brother graduated from high school earlier this month. We're really proud of both of them. Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures of Chris' brother graduating, so below is a picture of him winning state with his tennis doubles partner.

What We've Been Up To...

I went to the Shakespeare Festival again with my sisters and mom.

We went to see Utah Play Notre Dame in Football.

We also went to see Utah Play Bosie State in the Vegas Bowl.

We went to see the Winter Classic in Pittsburgh.

My grandparents from New Zealand flew over for a week.

Chris and I saw another baseball game, this time in Seattle.

I ran my very first Half Marathon.

We celebrated the royal wedding at work by wearing our hats and having a tea party.

I suppose it seems like a lot, but if I would just keep up, everything would be spread out and we'd look a lot more boring, like we really are. :)