Moab's Winter Sun 10K

So this was my 5th year doing the Winter Sun.  I started it up with my friend Kandace and we've done it every year since 2013 - with other friends joining along the way.

We've now including a temple trip to our race and so that is pretty great.  We left early Friday morning (I had a few tears in my eyes as I had to say my final goodbye to Wilson) and went to the Monticello temple and did initiatory work.

After that we drove in to Moab and then headed out for a small 3-mile hike to Corona Arch.  I've done this several times with my kids and knew it would be a good, small hike for all of us.

We stayed at a super-nice condo and just had a fun night eating our homemade chicken noodle soup, playing games, talking, and laughing.

The race started at 10am on Saturday.  A couple other friends drove up that morning and met us at the race.  Then there were a few other families that were up there from Montrose and so there was quite the group of us!

The run was good. I really pushed myself and had a great time for me:  52:03 (like 5 seconds slower than my PR - personal record).  Marnae finished first out of our group - about 5 seconds before me.  The last 2+ miles I was right on her tail, but I literally couldn't push myself to meet up with her even though she was only like 5 feet in front of me.  I was at my max.  :)  The official online results aren't posted yet, but it looked like at the race (the papers they posted) that Marnae and I both finished up 3rd in our age groups!  I'll have to see what it says officially, though . . .

Our condo was super great and let us check out late.  So we were able to go back, shower, gather up our stuff, etc.  We had a nice drive home with some good chatting.  :)

 Our Friday hiking group:  Kandace, Sarah England, Marnae Woodland, and Nichole Taylor; back row:  me, Sarah Bugarin, and Jeni Osorio.

Getting close to the arch.

Cool Corona arch!

Here's the Montrose group before our run!

 And here we are all finished!  Biting our finisher's medals, of course.  The young man in front, Zach, was the first to finish out of the Montrose group.  Marnae was 2nd and I was 3rd.

It was one of my favorite years of going - I loved it all!