I had an absolute blast at this year's Lavender 5K at the Young Living Farm in Mona, Utah. Last year, Amanda, Meri and I traveled south to Mona and I enjoyed it so much I vowed to return every year that I live in the Salt Lake area.
This year, I returned with Amanda and my friend, Elizabeth, but unfortunately not my mother-in-law, who is recovering from knee-replacement surgery. Mom, you were missed, but there's always next year!
We left Provo around 6 in the morning with two wonderful and supportive husbands and a less-than thrilled, but resigned, baby. Worried that we had arrived a little later than we had desired, we were surprised to have plenty of time to mill about while they worked out the technicalities of the running chips all the participants sported on their shoes.
Milling about.
I dearly wish I could have pictures during the interim of the race, but since I was so focused on putting one foot in front of the other that's just impossible. Sorry, folks. Rest assured that the views were gorgeous, the faint smell and lovely sight of lavender were plentiful and it felt awesome whenever I passed someone.
Coming in at the finish. I ran some 3 miles in roughly 32 minutes. Not too bad.
In fact, I was rather happy with my performance.
Seeking out our proud husbands.
More than anything, I'm proud of the way Elizabeth and I stuck together. This was her first 5k and she did an awesome job. We really helped push each other through to the end.
With my gorgeous family.
A photo op at the lavender fields.
My favorite picture of us.
It would be so much better if Mandi weren't cut out though :(
See this? Not to brag, but I never had to do this
whenever a small breeze kicked up. Haha!
More photos of the victorious athletes.
I'm just crazy about this view.
In addition to the 5k, Young Living has other events to keep people around.
One is a lavender wreath-making that I sadly didn't have enough cash for,
but happily, we had enough cash to take a lovely, fragrant bunch of lavender home with us.
I just love this guy. Muah!
The week of the tri I started getting nervous. In the pool I'd been training for endurance, not speed, and I was confident that I would be the absolute dead-last person out of the water. Additionally, I felt very comfortable with pool swimming due to the fact that I could see the bottom and stay in a straight line and the temperatures are moderately warm. The lake promised to be another story and it was.
Lake temps ended up being about 68-69 degrees. Not too bad, but we all thought it best I wear one of Mom and Dad's wet suits.
There are a few things I'll be doing differently next year. This year I'll be training for speed as well as endurance, I'll take longer to warm up and get into a rhythm before starting the race, I'll start on the outside so I won't worry so much about getting kicked in the face (I did get a few gentle kicks here and there, but thankfully not in the face), and I'll invest in some good de-fogging stuff for my goggles. I didn't end up last. In fact, I even passed some of the men who'd started about 3-5 minutes before we did and stayed ahead of about 10 other women. I did it faster than I had anticipated, but in our category (Women's Sprint Relay) I placed 3rd out of three swimmers, something I also want to change next year.
Another thing I'll do differently: bring shoes so I can run up the ramp without bruising my feet.
At the top of the ramp I passed our time chip on to Emily who seriously dominated in her segment. She got first in our category for biking despite the fact that she was cut off by a car and was led off course by some of the volunteers for a little while.
Bringing it all in at the end was Mandi (sorry the picture's a bit blurry), who also dominated. She got first place for running in our category and even shaved off roughly 4 minutes in her 5k time. Very impressive!
Overall we placed second, but with a few minutes shaved off my swim time, I'm confident we'll place first next year. It was so neat being with the other competitors who really motivated me to continue in competitive fitness. Several peopel in their 60s especially won my admiration. Mom and Dad Hull, Derrick, Squirt and Jeffrey (Emily's husband) were troopers. After the swimming, we had steady rainfall until we left. By the time the tri was over, everyone was as wet as I had been when I came out of the lake. Their support meant so much to all of us.
I actually never did find out my time, but I finished a few minutes behind Mandi and I did much, much better than I thought I would. It was such an awesome experience and they had so many fun things planned for after the race. For a small fee you could walk out in the fields and cut big bouquets of lavender, they had a "lavender tea party" for the kids and breakfast for everyone. It was one of those things that even while you're in the middle of it, you've decided you're definitely going to do this again. It was also great to have something to motivate me to get back in shape; we're already looking at other 5K/10Ks so we can keep it up! Thanks Young Living for such a fun day!