Dynamite Divas Rock the Relay

 I had an enjoyable weekend doing my first relay with ladies from my ward. It was the Red Rock Relay in Park City. Lindsey was kind enough to invite me to the party and I am so grateful for her thoughtfulness. It was just what I needed, to be able to hit the reset button on my life.

We left on Friday night and ate dinner at an Italian place in Midway. Dinner was lovely and it was fun to catch up with everyone. Katie C. sort of took on the role of hostess by asking questions to get the conversation going. We spent all night telling our "How We Met Our Husbands" stories, with a great deal of tangents thrown in.

Katie's family has a cabin in Midway and we slept there and were up super early to get to the starting line.

Katie was runner number one. She looks good, right?

She had to run in the dark and by the time she made it to the first exchange, the sun was breaking over the horizon. The sight was breathtaking; an idyllic, pastoral setting kissed by fluffy pockets of fog. Yep, it was going to be a great day for a run, or two.

Since our team was called the Dynamite Divas, we had a special hand-off, fist bump explosion thing going on. We were so cool, right?

Everyone is watching for Haley to come in on this leg. We were actually going faster than we expected and were catching teams all the time with the staggered start. You just can't stop pure awesomeness, I guess.

Until Lisanne's leg, most of the course was pretty mild. But she was getting ready to make a significant upward climb towards the Jordanelle Reservoir, 2.9 miles straight uphill. And she demolished it.

Here we are at the summit with Jordanelle in the background. Everyone has run a leg except for me, since Lindsey and I split leg #2. Katie was on her way down the hill to the reservoir, so she didn't make this picture.

I am ready to get going. My leg said 9.97 miles and my mind was ready for anything. I am not sure my body was, though.

Holy moley, holy hills. It was crazy what I was up against. The elevation gain was 1599 feet and the loss was 1477 feet. It was a net total gain of about 200 feet. It was intense. There were significant uphills and then immediate, significant downhills. The entire leg was a rudimentary gravel path. There were tons of turns and switchbacks and I have never done anything like that before in my entire life. I decided to just walk up the hills and then really try to gain time back on the downhills. It seemed to work as I did pass about 8 people. I only got passed 4 times. I was happy about that. And I was also happy about the fact that I was able to complete the course in 1 hour 55 minutes. It was not for the faint of heart. And my GPS watch said that the course was actually 10.3 miles long. Woosh! I was really happy to see that finish line and pass it on to Darcy.

Darcy went straight uphill for 7 miles to bring us into Park City, where she passed off to Haley again, who also went straight up for over 4 miles. And then Cassie and Lindsey ran together straight up 5 miles to get us over the summit and on the way to Midway again for the last leg.

That little red dot is Cassie, who had about a mile or so left from that point.

Lisanne brought us home by running eight miles down a steep, windy mountain road. It was great to have everyone at the finish line.  The team even competed in a push-up contest to win a dumb prize and I decided that since I really suck at push-ups I would just take pictures. Somebody had to, right?

Lisanne, me, Haley, Cassie, Lindsey, Darcy, and Katie.

 It was time to eat dinner and we were all starving. We went to Don Pedro's in Heber City and then hit the road for home. I think we were all pretty beat, but we sure had a fun time. I can't wait to do it again next year.