Wasatch Back Relay

(our van at the starting line)

last weekend was my 12-person relay from logan to park city. a total of about 181 miles. i ran more the last couple of months than i have my entire life. i'm not a runner, really, but i am so glad i decided to try this one out. our team of just women started friday morning at 9:40 and ended on saturday around 3:15 pm. it took us a total of 29 hours and 41 minutes. there were over 500 teams competing. the fastest teams came in at 17 hours and the slowest teams came in around 36 hours. the byu cross country team came in #1 overall. obviously, since i was on the team, we weren't going for time!

(jess getting ready to start the race)

driving up to logan on friday around 6 am, we were all excited that we didn't have anyone pull out due to injury or other commitments. we heard stories of teams scrambling to find replacements last minute. it works like this--you have two vans and six people in each van. each runner has to run three legs. the first van completes all their runner's legs and the second van takes over giving the first van a reprieve for a little to eat, rest, fill-up gas... i was in the first van and it was the best one to be in because we had the better run times. we were never running in the heat of the day. my friend, jess tanaka, was runner number one. i was number two. after my 1st leg one of the girls was saying she had a fever and was feeling like she had the chills. we had her rest a little and she said she felt better. she ran a really hard leg in some pretty bad heat and by the time she came in, she was pretty ill. she was throwing up in the car and her husband had to come pick her up. it was pretty sad considering we have all been training for this race for months and to have to quit would have been pretty hard to any of us. we were a little worried though that we wouldn't be able to complete her legs for her. the race rules say that someone on our team would have to step up and finish her legs. if she had gotten sick just hours before, we would have been able to replace her with a new runner. not being great at sticking with the rules, we all decided to have jess tanaka's mom run the remaining legs for us. she's a great runner and amazed us all.

(jess & i)

when our teammate left, our place to stay and shower left with her. we ended up parking behind a chapel at one of the checkpoints at 2 am trying to catch an hour or two of sleep before we were racing our legs again.

the best part of the race was the support. random strangers and teams yelling for you as you raced along the side of the road. or even random runners passing you telling you great job and to keep going. it was one of the best experiences and i loved every minute of it (well, maybe not so much when i was trying to sleep upright in a van).

(decorating our van)

(the back of our van)

(the other van)

(the finish)

(our team shirt. we were the mountain mamas. i don't know why, but i HATED our team name)

(my parents had the kids for those two days so i could run. THANK YOU MOM & DAD. dane came up to support me)

(my training partner, nancy)

(mountain mama team. you might be wondering why we are wearing aprons. their idea. i wouldn't run with it but i put it on at the end for the girl that put the time into making them.)

(me, with my medal that everyone gets. i was SO happy to be done. have no injuries. to eat and finally get some sleep!)

kev, i think you should come out next year and run it too!