Our group in the Daily Universe

Here is a link to the story published in the Daily Unierse about our trip.

http://universe.byu.edu/node/16495

Vienna

We arrived in Vienna on Monday and stayed in a hotel the first night. We started school today. I can now count and say the days of the week in German. YAY! Yesterday we went to the market and ate some Turkish food. It was the first time I ordered anything in German, but they understood. Maybe it was because 9 of us were all getting the same thing. Theses are basically lamb, lettuce, tomato, onion sandwiches topped with a yogurt sauce and spices, put in a pita bread. Its called a Doner Sandwich. We have basically been shopping by looking at pictures and pointing. Its been way fun. Well we are off to the opera.

Utah Valley Half Marathon

Saturday morning I found myself driven up the canyon, dropped off on the side of the highway and huddled around a fire at 4:00 in the morning. It then occurred that I was paying for this, and that I was paying to make myself run all the way back to center street. I don't know what it is, I just love running. I remember my freshman year in high school when I got a letter explaining when all the sports started for the upcoming semester. I looked at it and thought "hey I'll run cross country, why not". I love to run and love long courses when I can see the sunrise and the magnificent views that Utah has to offer. Katelyn and I decided to run this one separately so she could listen to her iPod and could see how fast I could complete the course. My goal was to finish the 13.1 miles in 1 hr 45 min (8 min mile pace). I started out with the 1:45 pace group knowing all I needed to do was stay with them and I would finish on time. Well, after 3 miles I started picking up the pace and ended up catching up the the 1:40 group. I ran with them until we hit mile 11. I dropped back and keep telling myself that I was almost to the finish and that the faster I ran the faster I would be done. Well I finished in 1:42:15 -- 2 min 45 sec ahead of my goal and 13 min better than my previous best. Needless to say I was very happy and very much in pain. I can still hardly walk because of the soreness. Katelyn was happy with her time of 1:55 (about the same time as the last one). A poster around mile 10 said said "Tough times don't last, but tough people do". I found this very applicable to that stage of the race. And the race motto sums it all up, "Pain You Enjoy".