So far i'm averaging about 1 post per month, not too bad:) I get inspired to blog each time I attend a Madsen get together and this past weekend we had a great time at Mike & Emily's wedding in Axtell. It's always great to see everybody in person and everybody is talking about each others blogs, pretty fun stuff!

Anyhow I wanted to write tonight because we rounded up our pictures from the half marathon we ran about a month ago up in Logan and I wanted to post them as evidence that I actually ran the race! Running has become an interesting hobby for me lately, I've always been active in sports but I have always HATED running with a passion! Especially sprinting, I got made fun of all the time in high school cause of how slow I was:) But an interesting thing happened a couple months ago.


We were talking to my friend/mentor/boss Garrett and he challenged Sharlene (who has been a runner forever) to run the Salt Lake half marathon, which was further than she had ever run before. He then asked me the farthest I had ever run which was at the time about 3 miles (optimistic guess) Then he challenged me to run 8 miles that night! Holy Crap! Right away the first thing I said was of course "There's no way I can do that!" Well he encouraged me and told me to throw a towel over the treadmill so I couldn't see how far or how long I had been running and just to run forever! And it worked! I ran a little more than 8 miles that night and was just amazed. Right away the first thought I had was How many other things in my life do I think are "impossible" but really it's just my mind playing games?

After that night I have actually enjoyed running because each time I go, I experience the same feelings of overcoming the limiting beliefs and thoughts that so often sneak into my head. The next big challenge was a half marathon and as you can see from the pics below we did it! Sharlene was such a HUGE help, about mile 10 I started complaining like a banshee telling her that I couldn' t run anymore, I needed to walk, I was tired, blah blah, whine whine! Well she she didn't put up with my lame excuses and helped me keep going and finish the race!



I think this was at mile 7 or 8ish... Still having fun!

This was mile 10 or 11ish, I was pleading with Dana to hit me with her car to put me out of my misery:)

Finished! and survived too!

So what's next? We are going to do a couple more half's then go for a full later this year. The ones we are looking at next are the Salt Lake half in April or the Ogden half in May...

How bout you? Come run with us!!! Here are the links to the different races, one thing is for sure it is way fun to run with other people and it would be way fun to get a big group to run together at one of these races!

Salt Lake Half

Ogden Half

P.S. If your mind is saying "I Can't" I'm telling you "YOU CAN!!"



P.P.S. Thanks Dana for taking the awesome pictures!