Red Rock Relay 2012

I know it has been a few weeks since Red Rock Relay but I was waiting to share my re-cap until the video came out.. ---We had a videographer hang out with us throughout the race.
So without further ado.. buckle up my friends your in for the review of a lifetime.. Seriously, its long and photo loaded!

Red Rock Relay Zion was pretty great this year! This was my second time doing this race and my third Red Rock Relay. I’m a huge fan of this relay. The race support is amazing and the the folks in charge of this are the bees knees.
We headed out on Thursday morning to help with registration in Cedar city. We got all packed up and ready to go. The back of the Suburban was packed and all the bags strapped down on the roof.
OR so we thought… It only took from zero to sixty until one of the bags flew off the top of the car on the freeway and was hit by a few cars.. I was driving, so I pulled over quick and we called highway patrol. Once we received the bag and gathered as much of her stuff off the side of the freeway we decided it would be best to just take everything off the top of the car..

Great start, eh?
The rest of the trip down was full of fun music, treats and girl talk.
Once we got to registration we got put to work!
We organized cute, awesome, and affordable clothing—seriously I wanted one of everything!! I also helped with and each teams race bags and assisted with check in and any questions that runners had about the race.

We got to bed around 11pm.
The next morning, our start time was 7:30ish. We all headed to the starting line to send of our runner #1. The race starts at 11,000 feet at Brian Head Ski Resort and makes it way through Dixie National Forest.

As runner #1 was running her leg we decorated the burb!
GPPsuperfits!

Each of us took on a superhero character- Bat girl, Super girl, Robin, Wonder Woman, Cat girl and Spider girl.
There was a few scooter rides in between legs. ---Next year I’m bringing roller blades..

First Transition DONE!

Wonder Woman powered up a crazy hill known to the relay as El Diablo.

It’s a steep climb but a short leg, so we headed to the next exchange to get Robin ready to go!

Off she went.. I won’t blog about each exchange but if you haven’t done a relay race before you pretty much continue to pass off to one of your team mates until you pass off to the next van.

I was the last runner in my van for my first leg and it was absolutely beautiful!! It was pretty hilly and was raining as soon as I got started but it quickly cleared up and was perfect! I couldn’t of asked for better weather! Running through Cedar Breaks was amazing!

After I passed off to our van #2 we rested, danced, swam and ate until it was time for us to meet with the other van to start our 2nd legs. It was about 11pm, when we started running. The night run was my shortest leg 4.7 and it was a great run, I am always surprised how great I feel when I am running at 2 am? 


I have no idea why my hair is crazy..

I get a little lazy at night with picture taking.. Sooooo, that is that for those legs.

To start off our last legs we decided to go ALL out. I mean we ARE professional relay runners and we don’t hesitate to dress up when needed.

Our friends had a hotel room and let us go clean up and dress up for our last legs.

When we got to the exchange, we immediately felt like Disney characters. We took pictures with everyone and cheered on the runners coming into the exchange.


This is my friend Marly, she lives in my neighborhood and just started running last year, has lost a bunch of weight, and now is addicted with the rest of us crazies! I love seeing her reach her goals and having her around in the relays!
I picked up an extra leg or half of a leg, one of our runners wasn’t feeling to well so super woman and spider girl covered her leg.

My last leg was 6.2! (which served as my longest training run for the marathon..)
Some folks use Gels, Jelly beans, or Gatorade—my supers use ice cream popsicles and Diet coke.Oh, and swedish fish. I know Janae would agree with that!

It felt great to be done! Once all the other superfits were done running we waited, slept, showered and got ready at my MIL condo in St. George, UT for the other van to make it to the finish!


Neil was the DJ/announcer/cool guy talkin’ at the finish.

There was even a slip n’slide at the finish!


We wrapped up the race in 28:34. Relays are not competitive to me at all. They simply are a good time! I had all my girls and we enjoyed supporting, cheering and laughing at each other all weekend.
You finish this race at Zion's National Park. Seriously, could it be any more amazing?

Here is the Video to wrap it all up!

I hope to see you guys at a Red Rock Relay next year! The cool thing about RRR is that they have one day relays! I did Moab this year and next year they will have two more ONE day relays if the two day thing isn’t your thang. Relays ARE for everyone! They are
Come run with me!
This week has been full of tough workouts and big things happening! I’ll fill you all in tmrw.
Have a great day or night..
PS. Don’t anyone dare say anything about Greys Anatomy.. I haven’t watched it yet! Can’t wait!!

Outsiders 2012

This weekend Brent and I left the babes and got a little getaway in with some friends. You may call it a trip, rather then a vacation.. but actually, the perfect vacation for me involves no kids, my husband, close friends and sweat. So, I’m classifying it as a vacation.I mean, when else do you make human pyramids,
Make a whole new meaning to a “ice bath”.

(yes, I have crazy friends.. It was probably 5 degrees outside.. so note: I’m in the car taking this photograph..)
Leg wrestling, games, laughing and chatting way past my bedtime. I think I was actually the first one to crash. My eyelids automatically shut at any moment past midnight. 
We woke up late (8am ish) enjoyed some oatmeal –
steel cut oats, berries and bananas. SO yummy.. pretty sure I had 3 bowls. But I was totally carb loading for what was about to come…


After breakfast it was time for the epic relay.
The inside-outside-upside down relay!
We were first separated into groups of 5 or in our case.. 4.
We were given a list of exercises that we had to strategize through to accomplish “for time.”
As a group we were to do the following: (from what I remember)

• Run 20 miles
• 400 high sumos next to a red vehicle
• 500 lunge steps next to a fence
• Hang upside down
• 1000 jump rope next to a gas pump
• 500 situps by a pine tree
• 300 burpees in snow
• 300 bicep curls per arm in front of a sign with a  “P” on it.
• 600 air squats 3 ft high
• 500 KB swings with a cow in a background
• 500m swim with 10 pushups after every 50 m.
• 15 min. plank
• 150 pull ups
• 3 people had to do the macrena in a place of business
• Random dance party with at least 5 spectators

There were a few rules we had to follow:

• You could do it in any order.
• You must take a picture of each event.
• The 20 miles must show on only 1 Garmin.
• Only 2 people could be performing a movement at a time
• Once you started an exercise you had to finish it.
• After gathering our thoughts and our plan of attack we all hit start on our timers and jumped were off.

Here are a few pics from the relay-


Brent, Chelsea and her husband nick hanging upside down!

Bicep curls next to a street sign with a “P” on it..(Notice the nice placement of my scarf? Haha!!)

Nick pounding out burpees in the snow!

Chelsea on the run!

Brent and I attacking high sumos in front of a red vehicle

Brent jump roping in front of a gas pump.
****Most of the pics were taken from Chelsea’s camera so Ill be sure to post more later.
**Props to all who planned and took part this weekend especially Katie for taking the time to organize, cook and clean and entertain all of us crazy cats up at her families cabin. THANKS KATIE!!
I think everyone will agree that it was a great weekend!!

Epic Relay

One week ago, I set out on my second relay of the summer! I really do enjoy relays! You can find my re-cap of my last one here.

Epic is a 205 mile race stretching from Logan, Utah to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. You complete the 205 miles running in a team of either 6 or 12. Each person has 3 legs. (Teams of 6 double up). You have a bracelet around your wrist that you pass off to your next runner as you complete your distance aka "leg". At that point you jump back in the van and drive past your runner in support and cheer them on, give them water etc. You continue in this orderly fashion until you reach the end. Through the heat, through the cold night and until the sunrises the next day. Sounds fun eh? Well, it is.

Our team name was WTF -- Witness the Fitness. We had a great team and everyone ran really hard and were simply inspiring!

The gals-minus jules. . I apparently missed the blue memo.

We goofed off a little.. alot at many of the exchanges! Dancing, chasing,

 playing with dairy cows,

I didn't know cows had kennels.. and yes, its licking her arm..

 swinging, pull up contest,

 eating...oh and quite a bit of running.

mid-run pictures are always classy.

I loved this course! Each one of my legs was long and scenic and just beautiful!!

It was a very well organized race! 

Pros- 

• This was only the 2nd year of Epic Cache-Teton Relay so there was only 92 teams. Compared to Wasatch Back that has about 400! So there was a lot less people. Little traffic at each exchange.
• Very scenic the entire way. I love running next to rivers and mountains!
• Every van was courteous and fun! No major competitors. We all were there to support each other.
• We end in Jackson Hole! I love the atmosphere of that place! There is a great bakery called the Bunnery! Its a must go! 
• All my runs were at pretty decent times of the day/night. Lucky me. 
• At one of the exchanges they had snow cones made with gatorade. Word.
• They had amazing volunteers that played drums and would laugh and joke with us while we hung around.
• Free water and a dunk tank at an exchange! Sign me up. 

Cons-

• The check in could of been a little more organized. It took a long time to go through each station to check off our gear and grab our shirts.. they should of organized the shirts by team beforehand..
• Not very many people... This was a pro to, but sometimes its nice to actually see or pass some runners while your out running your leg. We did see few but its always fun to count your "kills".
• The swag wasn't spectacular. But thanks for the 6 oreos and fat boy?..Although they had shotblocks and mini cliff bars so it made up for it. Oh, and a sticker to add to the back of the van..
• I'm sorry, but two honey buckets at a main exchange (where van 1 and 2 meet)  isn't nearly enough! Lets just say, I'm glad we were close to the wilderness. 

Overall the race was amazing and I would do it again in a heartbeat!