Wasatch Back Relay 09

While we were in Utah 2 weeks ago and while Andy was on his annual river trip, I ran in the Wasatch Back. This was the 2nd time for me, but the 1st time for all my bro's and sister(and one sister in law) to run it all together. So the 6 of us shared Van 2, and the other 6 members of our team were made up of friends of my brother Chad. Here's the starting line in Logan, Utah. We started at 12:45.One of the funnest parts of running this race is to see the craziness of the participants. Because this is a 24+ hour race, you see some hilarious things from the teams!! Here's Chad running his first leg with a 'gym class hero' wig and sweat band on. We couldn't stop laughing at him! As you can see from the girl on the side, it drew some attention...Around 3am, I met up with my good friend Emily. She was running with some friends from USU. Before I saw her, I heard my sister say,'What are you wearing???", and I knew she must have found Emily. She is hilarious! (She's wearing a sleeping bag in this picture)

The route of the race goes from Logan to Park City. As you wind through the mountains and back roads, you'll see the most beautiful scenery! One of my legs was on the old Snow Basin road that overlooks Pineview Reservoir, and it was gorgeous. Here's my brother Brad on his first run. He surprised us all by training, and totally ROCKING it on his runs.

And here's my bro Brett. From the picture, you can see he's mentally preparing himself for what is ahead. He kept us laughing as well, because he brought about 5 duck calls from his hunting gear and when we'd drive by folks, he'd use them. We got a lot of startles and cheers from that! :)

Here's Chad and Sherry running together for a minute on Sherry's run. These two are the masterminds behind our team. Our team name was Strong Women, Strong Men-AKA Gym Class Heroes(lol). Thanks to these two for being so well organized, and they are the ones who have done this year after year. So every few miles, your team parks and cheers you on and offers water, etc. It was awesome to have support from people so often, especially in the middle of the night runs, where it's dark, and all you have ahead of you is your headlamp and maybe another runner!

Here's Carrie and I right after her 'Ragnar' leg. There are only 2 legs that have official nicknames in this race-and this was one of them. It climbs and climbs up the back side of Park City resort. It is dirt and it was raining while she ran it. She is a super athlete, and was passing about 50 people a second:) Not thaaaaat many, but she rocked. In this picture, you can see I'm wearing an old Kaysville peewee jersey. Even though I never played football, something about it was inspiring, so I put it on.....j\k my family paid me 10$ to wear it, and it was totally worth it. Except for the middle run, I felt really good in this race. It was just a blast to do it with my family. We joked with eachother a lot, some of us wanted to die b\c we were so tired, and we all cheered eachother on, and it was an amazing experience because of that!

Here's most of our team at the finish line. As soon as our last runner came in(Brett), it started pouring rain, so we huddled under a tent.

I HAVE to give a big thanks to my mamma who watched Maren during this entire thing. Each time I'd call to see how they were doing, I'd listen for Maren's cry, and she was happy:) They got re-aquinted with eachother very quickly after I left, because she wouldn't let my mom set her down AT ALL during her awake hours:) Thanks a lot mom! And thank you to Mom Hall and the girls for letting me break away from the fun and run in it!!