This is going to be a long one!
After about 8 months of training, the weekend finally arrived to meet my team in Logan and run the back side of the Wasatch Mountains together. Sounds like fun, huh? 8 of us met at Kristin’s house in Farmington and loaded up in her Suburban. I had had some vinyl lettering cut that said, “If you had 57 kids, you’d run too!” Between the 12 runners, 2 drivers, and 1 trainer, that’s how many kids we have. We put it on the back of the 2 support vans and we were off. We met up in Logan with the rest of our team (minus Marinda who met us the next morning) and went to eat
and then had a team meeting to make sure we all knew what we were supposed to do over the next 2 days. We had a pretty good idea but could have never been fully prepared for what awaited us.
At 6:30am on Friday morning, the girls in Van 1 loaded up their van and headed over to the starting line.
The rest of us went over at about 7:30 to see Shelah off at 7:40. After that, it was back to the hotel to hand out for a couple of hours until we needed to leave to meet up with our team at the first major exchange.
This is the whole team before Shelah took off. I'm still in my sweats and glasses. Third one from the left, standing up :-)
After a bit of a detour throughout the streets of Ogden, we finally found our way and made it in plenty of time. It was so fun to see Van 1 come around the corner and then see Melodee coming in to pass the "baton" (slap bracelet) to Kristin. It was finally our van’s turn to run! Poor Kristin was so sick with morning sickness and it was incredibly hot. None of us had trained very well in the heat because of the cool Spring we had all had. (Kristin had just been surprised 2 weeks before with a positive pregnancy test. VERY unexpected but she pushed on.) Cara was next and then it was my turn to run my first leg of the race; leg #9. I had thought it was going to be my easiest leg but at about 3:30 in the afternoon, it was HOT! It was only 3.5 miles but was very tough.
This is be before the leg:
And during. Just amazing scenery!
My sweet family had found a spot under a tree about .5 mile from the end of the leg and as I passed, they cheered me on and my cute boys tried to run the rest with me. Unfortunately, that is against the rules and they had to stay with Drostan and Nana. I did it in 37 minutes, which was ok. I actually got a bit dizzy and almost passed out from the heat after I was done but a quick yogurt and some more water from my team mates and I was good to go. I had passed the slap bracelet to Sheree who passed it to Malinda and then Deanna. That was the end of our van’s first legs of the race. Everyone had done ok but struggled a bit in the heat.
It was about 6pm and after we made some chicken salad sandwiches and had some chocolate milk (oh that tasted good!) we decided to head to the next major exchange and try to get some rest. We found a spot on the weeds where we could put our sleeping bags down and tried to rest but after about 30 minutes of hearing (and smelling) the porta pottys, it ended up being a fun time to talk.
At about 10:30pm, we got ready to run again. Van 1 called and said they had lost Melodee in the dark so we were a bit worried about how it would go with our night runs coming up. We made the switch and we were off. Kristin was feeling ok and ended up having a great run! She really needed that. (We could tell it was going to be a good one when she mooned is the first chance she got!) It had been a tough many months of training. Cara was next and had a good, long run and was even surprised by her husband who came to run with her for the last 2 miles. Another great run. Then, it was my turn for my 6.2 mile run. This was leg #21. I took off and after only about 50 yards, my head lamp went out. It was 1:30 in the morning and all I had was a beautiful, almost full moon to run by. I LOVED it! I felt great and really made some good time. I didn’t want to be hit by a car though so when my van caught up with me, I switched out my head lamp and kept on going. I seriously felt amazing.
Cheesy grin before I started:
During the run!
I was doing 10 minute miles for the first 4 miles and then ended up with some hills at the end that slowed me down a bit but I felt so fantastic that I sprinted in to the finish. My total time was about 70 minutes.
Everyone ended up having their best runs during that leg of the race and then at 5am, it was our turn to rest and let van 1 take over again. We went to Sheree’s family’s cabin and absolutely crashed. Unfortunately, most of us ended up with a sour stomach and in the bathroom for the next couple of hours. The heat and lack of sleep had done a number on Kristin and the decision was made that she would not run her last leg and she was taken to Urgent care to get some IV fluids and some medicine to help with her extreme nausea. Shelah from the other van had already run an extra leg for Julie, who had hurt her knee but was up to do one more for Kristin. Melodee helped out with the last 2 miles of it. What an amazing group of women I have the pleasure of being friends with. The selflessness was overwhelming at times and many tears of gratitude and love were shed.
I had only been able to get about 8 oz of milk into me and 2 tiny nibbles of a bagel. Nothing else sounded even remotely good. I was nervous I would be in trouble on the trail without any porta potties around but we all took some Imodium and carried on to finish our last legs of the race. This was IT! After this, we would be DONE! We had been going for over 24 hours at this time with only about 2 hours of sleep, if that. We started up again at around 10 am and it was already getting HOT again; like high 80s. I knew that my killer hill was coming up and I just tried to sip some water to hope that I would have some sort of hydration in me. The first ½ mile was flat and I was grateful for that. I got in a groove and soon forgot about my sick tummy. All I could think about was this crazy mountain that I was supposed to be running up!
This picture doesn't do the incline justice but here I am...
For the first mile, I tried really hard to walk up the steep parts and run when it got a little flatter but soon, it was all I could do to just keep walking. The heat was really taking it’s toll on me and I could feel myself getting heat exhaustion. I was NOT going to have to stop! I was GOING to finish this hill! I would find any bit of shade I could (which was few and far between) and stand there for a bit to cool myself off and catch my breath. My amazing van would be there every .2-.3 miles with cold towels to put on my head, neck, and back. They would switch out my water and spray me with a spray bottle. It was such a relief and helped me to feel like I could keep going. So many people passed me and told me I could do it and to keep going and it was amazing to feel the support from all those around me, even perfect strangers. I was able to pass 4 people on the hill! All MEN! Sure they were either stopped to take a drink or catch their breath but hey, I’m counting it! ☺ At about 2.5 miles in, I just didn’t think I could do it any more. I came around a really tough bend and saw my support van there and just broke down. They hugged and cried with me and helped me to cool down again and with their love and support and a LOT of prayers, I suddenly got an extra boost of energy and was able to run again for about .4 miles.
Here I am at the "1 mile to go" sign...
At less than a half mile to go and I pushed over the last hill and finally handed off the bracelet to Sheree. My first leg was 3.5 miles and I had done it in 37 minutes. This leg was 3.6 miles and it ended up taking me 1 hour and 25 minutes to complete! It was the hardest thing I think I have ever done but I did it!
Sheree finished off the next 4 miles of the mountain... (here we are showing what we had just conquered)
and then the last 2 girls took us down the other side into Park City where we were able to meet up at about 100 yards from the finish line. We saw Melodee come around the bend and we all ran in to the end together. 32 hours and 11 minutes of tears, sweat, heat, dust, exhaustion, excitement, blisters, support, and determination and we finished it.
My sweet parents and husband and kids were at the finish line with signs and lots of iced water. It was heaven sent!
Only about half of the girls on the team had done any major racing before and the rest were pretty new to running. Would I do it again? Give me a couple more days to recover and I will answer with a resounding YES… only I do NOT want to ever run up that mountain again! I’ll take a different leg next year please!
