Saturday May 12, 2012 I was part of a group of 6 that ran the Red Rock Relay in Moab, UT.
A little background... I'm not athletic at all. Total nerd! Can't throw or catch. HATE running or anything that makes me sweaty. Not terribly coordinated. A pretty, pretty princess basically sums it up. Then I met Travis, the total opposite. For some strange reason he enjoys running (weird, I know!). After we'd been dating only a month he decided that it would be "fun" to run together. I soon learned that if I wanted to see him in the evenings after work the only way to do that was to run with him. It was (and still is) as close to torture as I've ever gotten. I would get all sweaty and out of breath, it would totally ruin my hair, and it would exhaust me. How in the world is that fun?! However, I continued to run. Of course there would be the classic 2 year old temper tantrums whenever he would add to our route without warning me-- complete with meltdowns and stomping feet in the middle of the street, and by the time summer rolled around I was keeping up with him (and at one point besting him). This last fall, after another run, Travis asked if I would like to run in a relay race. I demanded details, "It's like the length of a marathon and there will be 6 of us." That got me thinking, "A marathon is only 26.2 miles, split among 6 of us would be just over 4 miles each. I'm doing that every night with Travis, so I can totally handle that." I agreed. Travis and his roommate, Zach, signed me up. A few nights later, after another run Zach met us at the door, "So Sarah, you're going to run 69 miles with us?" WHAT THE?! 69 MILES!!! I'd been tricked! They had already registered me, money had been paid, and my head nearly exploded. At that point I knew I would only be enjoying 2 days as a 29 year old and then they would be carrying my limp lifeless body home to my mother for Mothers' Day.
So, I began to train. My next greatest fear (after suffering a long torturous death running) was that I would be the slow slacker on the team that every hated for holding us back. I was running in the evenings and then a month before the race I thought it would be a good idea to train twice a day, since I would be running 2 legs. After a week and a half of 5:15 a.m. workouts I was done with that nonsense. When I would get to work in the mornings Jacob would take one look at me and ask, "You ran this morning didn't you." In my head my answer was always, "Yes! Now stand still so I can punch you in the face!" Not that he had done anything wrong, he hadn't, it just made me that irritable.
About a week before the race we had a "team meeting" where I was informed that not only would I be running 10.5 miles, I would be camping for 2 nights. Pretty much the best weekend ever... But, I decided if I couldn't change it I would embrace it.
Away we go!
Saturday morning... We had a start time of 8:20 a.m. Here's our mighty team, "Late 20s Fearing 30." Rheana, Hailee, me, Travis, Ashley, and Zach
Travis isn't one who enjoys smiling pretty for pictures.
Ashley was first up. Leg #1 Medium... 7.36 miles
It was a gorgeous day and we had awesome scenery!
One of the stops we made to wait for Ashley. Rheana and Hailee's parents were kind enough to allow us to use their van for the day as the support van. We were able to stop whenever we needed to give our runner water. Hailee's husband, Aaron, was our driver. He was awesome!
Go Ashley!!
I was runner #2. Stretching and trying to convince myself I could handle this.
The trade off. Not only did Ashley hand over the bracelet, but she was kind enough to let me use her music. I was trying to download new music onto my iPod minutes before Travis came to pick me up Friday. As I disconnected my iPod from my computer all of the music on it was erased. I tried 3 times to get it back on, but we were running a few minutes late and had to leave. I totally cried and then pouted for nearly 2 hours. There was no way I could have survived both of my legs without music. Thank you Ashley!
Travis likes this picture because the "Sex Panthers" drove past just as he took it. Leave it to Travis to be inappropriate!
Almost done. My first words upon climbing back into the van, "This is NOT fun!"
Zach was runner #3. Leg 3... Medium, 3.4 miles. This was the beginning of our ascent into the La Sal Mountains.
Rheana took over on Leg 4... Hard, 5.32 miles. Still climbing.
And this, my friends, is what I did after finishing my first leg. It was really the best choice.
Hailee's turn! Leg 5... Hard, 2.94 miles. These climbing legs were tough! But Hailee and Rheana were awesome!
Travis finished up the first half with Leg 6... hard, 3 miles.
Water and inhalor moment. I was glad I grabbed the inhalor when I jumped out of the van.
This is some of what Travis had to climb.
The only time I really enjoyed the view was when I was not running. I'm sure the scenery during my legs was just as beautiful, but I really didn't care.
Ashley's second turn! Leg 7... Hard, 2.75 miles. This leg turned out to be insane! We all decided this should have been the leg that was considered "Very Hard." Ashley was a trooper. The amount of climbing she had to do was intense.
Part way through Leg 7 they had a photo op for the teams. We hollered at Ashley to join us.
It's hard to see the road, but this was Ashley's leg.
More of Ashley's climb.
Zach ran down to meet up with Ashley and help her with the last little bit. She really was a rock star!
Then it was my turn again. Leg 8... Hard, 3.25 miles. More climbing... The official description, "Do you want the good news or the bad news? Okay, bad news this run has some serious climbing. The good news, this run has some of the most beautiful panoramas known to man. Your hamstrings will hate you forever but you still won't want to stop." Oh, I did want to stop. I was able to run the first mile, but after that it was far too steep, so I just walked as fast as my legs could carry me.
I'm done! Zach's final turn, Leg 9... Medium, 7 miles
Rheana's final turn, Leg 10... Very Hard, 7.32 miles. Rheana was AMAZING! She finised with a 9:30 minute pace. Totally worshipping her as a hero.
The hand off to Hailee. Leg 11... Hard, 8.8 miles.
Aaron and Hailee are one of the cutest couples I've ever seen. He ran a good stretch of the end of her leg with her. She held an 8 minute pace the entire leg. We were all in awe of her! Seriously, she is totally incredible!
Travis finished us off with Leg 12... Medium, 7.62 miles.
Our team chose not to skip any legs or have any of our runners start early. Many other teams did one or both of those things. We began our day at 8:20 a.m. and finished at 9:10 p.m. We ran together across the finish line. It was totally exhausting, but felt great to finish and know that we had done the entire race straight through. It was quite the victory for us. These were amazing people to spend an entire day with. Not sure what the future holds as far as more racing goes. ;)
Sunday morning we packed up camp and headed into Moab. We got breakfast and then strolled around town for awhile before heading home to celebrate Mothers' Day.
Another adventure in the books with Travis. It certainly is never dull with him. He keeps me on my toes. Good thing I love spending time with him.
