Wasatch Back 2010

Our team start time for this race was 5am, so in an effort to get some sleep the night before (Thursday night) part of my team and I went up early and spent the night at our captain's aunt's house. Unfortunately for me, I don't sleep well in unfamiliar places, so it felt like I never went to sleep that night. I am pretty sure I was still awake when our alarms went off at 3:15am Friday morning. We had to be up, ready, and to our pre-race safety training at 4am.

My first run happened about 7am Friday morning and was a 5.1 mile leg. Above is a picture of me awaiting my team member (you can see him approaching in the distance).



He is passing the fancy baton (aka slap braclet) and I am off. I let him borrow the GPS pacing watch (that I had borrowed from a friend) and so the watch exchange didn't go quite as smoothly as the slap braclet.

In this picture my teammates are cheering me from the sidelines in an effort to get me to explode off the starting line, but as you can see I was having some trouble multi-tasking. Apparently, I can't run and put a watch on simultaneously.

And then I was off and running (looks like I'm gasping for air in this picture)!!!


Once our first 6 runners ran, we handed off to the second van and our next 6 runners had a turn. In the mean time, our van went to Subway for lunch and just lounged around waiting our turn to start running again.

I don't have a piture of me running my second leg, but I set off at about 5pm and man was it hot!!! This leg was definitely the hardest of my 3 legs...maybe the heat, or maybe fatigue.

We exchanged to van 2 after our second run and headed to dinner and to the Oakley fairgrounds (the race covered the most beautiful 188 miles of Northern Utah). By the time we had dinner and got settled in our sleeping bags it was about 11pm Friday night. We didn't get to sleep long (we woke up about 2:15am Saturday morning to begin our 3rd leg), but it was seriously such a refreshing night of sleep.

I think we all felt refreshed! Here are my van members bright and early Saturday morning loading up the van (we were required to wear reflective vests from dusk til dawn).

Here were my 3 legs.

The finish line was just waiting to be crossed! We just needed our other 6 runners to finish, so that so that we could all run across it together.

These last few pictures are out of order, but here I am posing with my first medal ever!

Team: Roman's Legion (the bald guy in the front is Roman)

Race time: 31 hours and 17 minutes!

Summer of Races!

I'm counting down the days until my first bike race ever!!! I would say my first race ever, but I once got tricked into running the Turkey Trot...SARA!

Anyway, I've been very excited about getting into biking. And very excited about this race on Saturday. Unfortunately, as I was getting all geared up for it (having my bike adjusted at a bike shop) I learned that this is actually a "ride" and not a "race." Funny.

The good news is that I WILL be racing in a few more weeks.....running in the Wasatch Back Ragnar Relay. (more on that when it gets here).

Let me finish this post with a picture from tonight...I had just gotten home from a 23 mile ride with my roommates (third time riding that trail since saturday). LOVE IT!!!

Sneak Peak

I'm about to start a quilting project... wish me luck!!!

I also love these!

Love this!

I've been having a serious quilting bug these last few weeks and I just can't shake it. I've spent my lunches blog-stalking about quilts and finding all kinds of treasures. Today's stalking adventures led me to this cute bag...and now I really want one!

Deliciousness

I'm going to attempt a new recipe this week. Wish me luck!!!

P.s. I made my first lasagna last week and it was so simple that I can't believe I haven't made it before now.

P.s.s. I've been looking for new recipes, now that my roommates and I have started dinner sharing, so if you have any good recipes, send them my way!

Happy Birthday Mom!!

Dear Mom,

Do you remember the time I came home from high school and caught you rocking out in front of the stereo all by yourself? I think you were perfecting your signature "figure 8" dance moves (which by the way you taught me well)!!

Or how about the time you asked for a bean burrito, B-E-E-N!

Or the quarter-twist (that's all I'm gonna say about that one)! :)

Or the time you were in a huge huge hurry and asked me to grab your newly purchased nylons off the stairs so that you could quickly finish getting ready, and I quietly snuck the nylons out of the plastic egg container, replaced the egg in the box, and handed it too you! Oh the desperation in your voice and the look on your face when you thought you had ripped off by Leggs...priceless!

Then there was the time you surprised me and flew up for my birthday just to make sure it was a great one.

And the time you endlessly sacrificed to make sure your children were happy, healthy, and loved.

But not only that, you also sacrificed for so many other people and went out of your way to help people in ways that they could not help themselves...HOTEL NORRIS is probably the best example of this (I can think of at least 7 strangers/friends who experienced a warm roof over their heads as a result)!

The list could go on and on, but mostly I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday and remind you how much you are loved!!

Love you Mom!!