Sunday, September 7, 2008

WASATCH BACK RELAY

EAT SLEEP DRIVE? REPEAT
This is the slogan of the Wasatch Back Relay. My lovely roommate Mikelle let me participate on her company-sponsored team. The race was held on June 20th and 21st. For those of you who don't know what this is, let me explain. This is a relay race from Logan to Park City (178 miles) that takes place over two days. Your team consists of 12 people. Each person on the team runs three legs of the race. The mileage varies per leg and ranges from 3 to 8 miles. The team is broken up into two vans of six people. All the people in one van complete their legs and then meet up with the second van at designated transition spots. Once the second van takes over, the first van of people can go rest, eat, clean up, etc.

Running the Wasatch Back was an awesome and challenging experience. It was really difficult, but I would definitely do it again. Hopefully I'll actually train more and learn how to breathe at high altitudes.

Mikelle on the phone (I've never seen that before) while we wait for van 1 to arrive at the first transistion point.

Mike Remington, Mikelle's twin brother, stretching out. He was the fastest person in our van and had to make up for how slow I was.

Showing off my hot pink shorts, I know they're pretty dang sweet!

The passing of the wristband to our first runner from Van 2, Mikelle (It looks pretty intense, doesn't it).

Runner 2, Kasey Child, off to a good start.

Mark, a co-worker of Mikelle and Kasey

Mark's wife Paula

My support team - My mom and Josiah came up to cheer me on for my first leg of the race.

The guy in the blue is Troy from my work. He is wearing a Hannah Montana wig.

My leg started near Pineview Resevoir and headed up the road to Snowbasin. The scenery was incredible, but the road was incredibly steep which meant I walked a lot. This pictures was taken on the last mile of my leg, which was downhill.

My mom running along with me again. The first 5k I ran when I was 12 years old, I had really bad shin splints and had to walk. My mom was waiting for me and ran along side me wearing little red high heels. She is amazing!

One of the best parts about the Wasatch Back is seeing how creative teams are at decorating their vans.

Mike cruising up the hill and making up some of my lost time. Mike was the last runner from our van. After he finished we had some dinner and headed to a cabin to try and get an quick nap in. I don't think anyone slept much before we had to head to the next transition spot to meet Van 1.

The next group of runs took place at night. During the day the temperature was in the high 90's but it dropped a lot at night.

Kasey loved her run in the dark.
After we all finished running we headed to a high school and tried to sleep on some wrestling mats in the gym for a few hours. I think we all got about 40 winks.

Even after a night of no sleep, we still have smiles on our faces as we get ready for our last legs of the race.

If you don't know what Swoobs are, talk to Jenni Prue.

Mikelle is pretty happy to pass of the wristband and finish her last leg of the race.
The hardest two legs of the race are called the Ragnar. They are very steep and at high elevation. Lucky for us, Paula and Mark are insane and volunteered to run these two legs. We're waiting for Mark to come by so we can spray him with some water.

Mark passing off to Paula

My last leg was about a mile to the top of Guardsman pass and then down the road to Deer Valley. This was the hardest leg for me, I had an asthma attack and had to walk a large portion of my run even though it was downhill. My team was awesome and stopped a lot to give me water and encouragement.

31 hours after we started we finally crossed the finish line!

All of Team L-3 Communications.

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Mt. Olympus


Every morning I walk out my front door and see Mt. Olympus towering in the distance. In June I decided that it was finally time for me to get to quit living in it's shadow and make the journey to the top. My lil' hiking buddy Jenni Prue agreed to come along for the adventure.

The hike was more intense than we expected. Almost the entire hike was straight up hill. It was quite a "booty" workout. The view from the top was incredible and made the hike completely worth it.

A nice photo op.

We found a caterpillar hotel...it was nasty!

Taking a little break before starting the hard part.

Prue thinks she's Egyptian

Where we've been

As usual, we packed more than enough Scooby Snacks

This is where the hard part began

What are you looking at?

We made it!

Why is there a mailbox?

Who knew there would be a party at the top?

"The weather is here, I wish you were beautiful"