"I Just Wanna Run..."

So last week was a little crazy. On the 16th, my cousin Crystal and I ran "The Other Half" in Moab. That was a pretty fun time in spite of our detour that took us somehow into Colorado due to my cousin's instructions that "it's a straight shot".... We just wanted to take the scenic route I guess. I liked the course though. There were a couple hills, but a lot was fairly flat or downhill. At about mile 10, my IT band started bothering me a lot and I slowed way down. I was still able to beat my time from my last half though and finished in 2:14:20. Next time I do one I'm shooting for 2 hours or less, like my amazing cousin did this time. We'll see how that goes. The best part was that we got lost on the way home as well, so it ended up taking us about an extra hour and a half. We're not the best with directions...

Well then this past weekend, I got to go to Las Vegas to run the Vegas Ragnar. I'm not gonna lie, I did it for the super cool medal. You get a really neat one for doing two Ragnars in the same year. So I got to be on a team full of people I didn't know.

Driving down there to even start the race was a mess. There was so much traffic and construction that it took my mom and me 8 hours to get to Vegas from Salt Lake, and on the way we managed to have a piece of something flip up and dent the hood of the rental car and crack the windshield. Not cool. By the time we got there, we were both frustrated and starving and bawling. Ha not a good way to start a two day race. It ended up being ok though. We got to our hotel and made it the next morning in time for me to meet my team and go to breakfast with them. They were all way fun and super cool people. Mostly from California but one from Vegas and one from Washington.

We ended up having one of our team members drop out due to an injury and we almost weren't able to finish the race, but somehow we got through and finished Saturday night around 6:30. It was definitely an adventure.

It's funny how the harder things are, the more you appreciate being done and the better you feel about your accomplishments. I also really appreciated my parents going down with me and being so supportive of what I wanted to do. I am pretty dang lucky. :)

"Everybody needs inspiration; Everybody needs a song..."

I realized a very long time ago that music means more to me than it does to a lot of people, but today I realized something else. I went to choir today- which lately has been one of the few things keeping me going- and the girl that was giving the thought for the day mentioned how the Savior can be our best friend. That wasn't the focus of what she was saying, but she said it. Well, it got me thinking that I'm definitely not to that point, and I want to be. Then I started thinking about why that's hard for me. If we have Him available to us and He is perfect, why would we not take advantage of it? Well, sometimes it's hard to think of your best friend as someone you can't see there. My mind then took me back to a conversation I had with one of my favorite mission companions. We were talking about prayer and she said, "Sometimes I feel like I just can't quite get through to Him." I think I feel like that a lot. Like I'll be praying and just pouring my heart out and trying so hard to feel like someone's listening, but I feel instead like I'm just talking to the wall. But then yesterday in choir we were singing this song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70kdwGBv8fQ (it's good- you should check it out!)

As soon as we started singing, I just got this overwhelming feeling of peace and love and I knew Heavenly Father had been listening. "Just talk to your Father in Heaven. He hears every prayer and answers in His way. In time, He will answer. He will not fail us." -Richard G. Scott. (http://lds.org/new-era-2003-08-recognizing-answers-to-prayer?lang=eng&query=answers+prayers -Great talk!)

Anyway, I know that Heavenly Father hears us and I'm so grateful for that. We just need to learn to recognize the way He talks back. I am definitely going to work on that and on depending on Him instead of other people- even though sometimes that feels harder since we can't see Him. But He's always there, and that is pretty incredible.