One down, four to go!

Saturday morning I ran the Ogden Marathon — the first of the five marathons I plan to run in celebration of my 40th birthday.

The Ogden Marathon is one amazing race!

Not that my time was amazing. It was, however, a personal record. I finished with a time of 4:54:59, and my only other marathon time — two years ago in the Salt Lake Marathon — was five hours and six minutes.

My goals Saturday were modest.

1. Finish.

2. Get to mile 17 by 11:30 a.m. so race officials don't ask me to leave the course.

3. Have fun!

My work schedule is a little hectic right now — it is state tournament time — and there was a bit of road construction on I-15, so I didn't check into my hotel until about 11 p.m. That was interesting. I made a reservation at the Ogden Marriott and specifically said I would be checking in late. But as they had my credit card, I figured that meant I had a room. I found out from the very nice desk personnel, "It means you have a room, but we just don't guarantee which room."

They explained that it was "first come, first served" and most of the other runners had checked in, so I was likely going to get a hospitality room with a roll-away bed. I was OK with that because I was exhausted and knew I wasn't going to be sleeping a lot, but I did want a shower and I didn't want to pay $110 for this secondary accommodation. When I asked how much that would be, the clerk left to ask a manager and then returned with some good news. She said I was getting a luxury suite in the hotel's most exclusive, secure floor — for my originally quoted $110. So I made my way up to my exclusive room and discovered a room that looked an awful lot like the one I'd reserved.

My youngest sister, Dani, 18, ran this marathon with me. It was her first marathon so she was a little nervous and excited.

I was not excited. I was tired and worried I had forgotten something. In fact, I was so nervous I had to get up every hour or so and eat a slice of bread to keep from vomiting. At about 2 a.m. Dani woke up and saw me eating bread. After a few minutes, she got up and ripped open a PowerBar and ate it — in our king size bed. I asked her if her stomach was upset as well.

"No," she said in the darkness. "I was just worried you were carbo-loading without me. I don't want you to have more energy than me."

Two hours later, we woke — without an alarm — and got showered and dressed for our race. I was so worried about the heat that I wore shorts and a tank top and didn't even bring a sweatshirt. Unlike others, who actually read the e-mail we got from Ogden Marathon officials, we didn't know it would be between 35 and 40 degrees at the start of the race.