red rock relay

Last weekend my girls and I ran the red rock relay in Moab. It totally rocked. I haven't had that much fun in a long time. I laughed so hard so many times. Jamie organized this thing months ago, then had to have ankle surgery. She got a replacement, who hurt her knee, and got another replacement. Jamie and Corie still wanted to come along so the eight of us partied it up. We figured out we left 8 husbands and 22 children behind and we felt so free!

The night before the race we checked into our teeny little cabin. We squished way too many people in there but it was fun. Pam, Tessa, and I hit up every gas station in town buying overly-priced bandannas to go with our amazing sparkle skirts. We stocked up on the essentials: bagels, bananas, gatorade, candy and snickers, of course. In the morning we got up and headed to the park to start the 70 mile race.

We were called the "bayfield booties", and our sparkle skirts were the bomb. They glimmered and shined like crazy and I am pretty sure they had special power too. We loved them, and got plenty of attention from other teams and the race photographers. I liked that we stood out, and I loved that I could see my team from far away waiting to cheer me on and give me water.

We had fun hanging out in the park for a while. We watched other teams start and the announcer was hilarious. Suzette won a tech shirt for doing 20 a.maz.ing. push ups at the start. The girl next to her (a byu soccer player) was barely going down and Suzette was killing it like a man in the army.



Riding in the car was so fun. We stopped every mile or two and got out and waited for our girl to come. We'd spray water with the super-soaker, give drinks, high fives, dance around like crazy people, cheer, and put on a show. I am sure I wasted a ton of energy but it made me so happy to see my friends supporting me when it was my turn and I thought I might not make it.


The run was absolutely gorgeous. It made the near 5,000 foot elevation gain a little bit more bearable. This run was a beast. My first leg was 5.4 miles uphill the entire way. I have honestly never been that miserable in a race before. I felt like I was running at a snail's pace but I finally finished and prayed that I would feel better on my second leg.


I started the uphill part at about 15 miles into the race and it continued on for the next 20 miles. It got steeper and steeper and more brutal. Even though those legs of the race were a shorter distance, they were tough. At some parts, the people walking were easily keeping up with those trying to run.



I loved meeting the other teams. There were a few that we saw consistently and we had a good time cheering for each other. The team names were so funny. One that we were near the entire time was "we got the runs". They had a huge flag on their car and they made me laugh. Some other favorites were: delicate arches, newly-weds, over-feds, and nearly-deads, sister wives, half fast runners, and super useless super powers.



Eventually we did get to start going down and it felt great. My second leg was over 8 miles and I ran it in the same amount of time it took me to run the first 5 that I did. I felt great clipping along in a 7ish mile pace. I feel like it was sort of cheating with the steady small decline and flat road, but still, I think I earned that.


I was sad that Jamie didn't get to run but so happy that she came along. It was just so fun. I can't say that enough.

Susan was our last runner and we waited for her at the park. We all got to finish together, even though we were totally out of steam by then.

We did surprisingly well for none of us really training at all. I think I've run 3 or 4 times, maybe, since the middle of march. We decided our team name should have been, "straight off the couch." We ended up finishing 67th out of over 150 teams, most of them coed. We beat a few all male teams and were in the top female teams. Not too shabby. We are excited to do it again next year and actually train for it--the right way.

I feel like we were all good friends before, but this little trip just made our friendship even better. We just clicked, we've all been through some crazy hard stuff, and we are all pretty hilarious if I do say so.