Wasatch Back Relay 2009

Sorry it has been so long since I have posted.
The few days prior to the race was filled with getting ready, and even having been home a few days I am still tired. Yes, my fingers are so weak but I am mustering typing energy for you. Snuggle down and get ready to read some deets if you are interested...
First and foremost, if you aren't familiar with what this is, go read about it here. You basically gather a group of 12 people, each of which run 3 legs that vary from 3-9 miles long (easy or hard). The first car full of the first six runners begin the race, each taking their turn. When runner #6 is done, car #2 meets at an exchange point, exchange the baton and runners 7-12 each go. Then car #1 drives ahead to the next exchange to run legs 13-18, and so on. It continues ALL NIGHT LONG and well into the next day. There are tons of teams, interesting costumes, lots of decorated cars and positive energy. It's the first time I have ever done it and it was really, really fun.
Now... how awesome is our logo!? We came up with a fun team name, but my friends brother is the one who did our logo. It was so perfect and got fun attention all weekend long. We had shirts made and my great friend, Jackie, was willing to cut vinyl for me, so we slapped it all over both team cars. I promised to get a good pic of the car but never did- lame! Hopefully another one of our girls got one. So, now with shirts, car stickers, black nail polish, fake tattoos and other glam rock accessories, we were ready to hit the road.
Our start time wasn't until 9:15 am on Friday morning, so we had plenty of time to get ready. Here is Julia carefully contemplating and applying some Ed Hardy.
This next picture is of everyone in car #1. From left to right: Heather, Julia, Sara, Erica and Michelle. I was the first runner so I took this on our way over to the starting line. Aren't we perky? Yeah, well, that died down..... okay, not really....
The weather was awesome- nice and cool and the scenery was sooo beautiful. Who would have thought that such cool, small towns were littered all over the back side of those mountains?! I never would have seen them otherwise so I snapped a few shots fer ya.
More on the pics:
-Erica had quite a climb surprise during her first leg. If you enlarge that pic you can see her from up high where we were. But did she complain? No, compadres...
-The four of us waiting at an exchange
-A cool barn
-Julia the bandit, getting ready to run up Avon pass (dude- a very hard section to run and she did great)...
-In the middle is the shot of our complete team. Heather, from our car, had to leave early for a wedding so she'd be missing from our finish line picture at the end. So we decided to take a quick photo of us all at the first exchange point in all our shredded rocker T's and fresh, smiling faces!
From left to right: Erica, Julia, Brenda, Myndi, Jana, Jen, Emily, Michelle, Heather, Roz, Sara & Me.
-Heather running through the night... she was an animal, that one... had so much fun killing herself on the hills at 1:30 am. She was always so positive and fun.
-My car outfitted with a make-shift shower idea. I thought it would be handy to make a place to clean up after our 2nd shift of runs. Would it work? A couple of sheets and binder clips? Why, Yes! It worked like a charm! And a few of us were spring time fresh in pj's for the night of no sleep.
-And finally, us at the finish line!!! The weather started to get pretty stormy and cold by the time our last few girls finished. Those girls in the second car were some tough chicas. We only had time for a few photos before the temperature dropped and rain blew in at a 45 degree angle so we all dispersed our seperate ways.
But it was SO FUN! It feels so good to have it over (and so good to ride my bike again) but I never would have thought running 19 miles like this would be such a blast. Everyone was safe, everyone was positive, everyone was willing to help when necessary, everyone pushed themselves and did their best....everyone was incredible! It's an honor to have some great friends who would want to do something this crazy. Love you, girls!!!


OH- and the last pic was from my parents garage on the way home... Lately my brothers & Dad have been into gathering these old scouts and I thought the point of view from the garage was classic. Rich's orange one in the street, My Dad's blue striped one out front and I think Marty's (Or I'll take it :) ) burnt orange/pink one in the garage. Nice, guys... nice....
(Dad- I thought you might like that)