Saturday morning May 16th, 2009 , our alarms went off at 4:00 a.m. We already had everything laid out and were ready to go at 4:30. My dad dropped us off at that bus pickup and we were loaded and on our way up the canyon by 5:00. I loved listening to all of the stories around me from seasoned marathon runners, it helped to calm my nerves. Once at the top we gathered around the fire pits in the 28 degree weather, and made our visits to the porta potty's. 30 minutes to race time we stood in the potty lines one more time (which were very long) and then threw all of our unwanted clothing into the back of the u haul and headed to the starting line. Our toes were so frozen we couldn't feel them for the first two miles( we would be wishing for frozen toes again around mile 17). We stood at pace marker 10 and waited for 7:00 and the gun to sound. Off it went, and we didn't start moving for a few minutes. 5 minutes later we were finally at the start line and on our way. ...