Wasatch Back

At the end of May my friends Jaylynn and Brandon Bryson asked me to run the Wasatch Back. This is a race through the mountains from Logan to Park City. In previous years I have told them no. This year they needed a substitute and I wasn't training for anything so I said yes. Their team name is the Crusin' Couples, since they try to get all husband and wife runners. There are 12 people on a team and two vehicles, so 6 people to a van(suv, truck etc) I rode in van #2. This is our decorated van. We waited in Eden for our first van of runners to travel from Logan to pass off our team's wristband so we could start running.

These are our first three runners.This is Brandon handing off to me at about 8:50 pm. Yes that's when I started running. My first leg of the race was to run from Pineview Res. halfway up to Snowbasin Ski Resort.

This is me running in the dark with a head lamp on my hat. It was a "hard" leg as the Ragnar people labeled it and I agree with them. I wasn't prepared for the temperture to rise as I climbed up the mountain. But I ran my first 3.8 miles up hill in 43:36:56 which I was happy with. I handed off to Kristi and she finished running up to Snowbasin. After all of our first runs were over and we handed off to van #1. We went to Denny's to eat but I couldn't eat much that soon after running. Then we went to East Canyon to get some sleep before we had to run again. I slept an hour or so before they called to say that they were ready to hand off again. We crawled into the van and headed off to Henefer.

This is Kristi and I sitting in the back seat. We stayed there most of the time. This is me getting ready for my second leg 4.6 miles from Hoytsville to Wanship.
This time you can actually see Brandon hand off to me.This is my first "kill," someone I actually passed. See I'm in front of her and she didn't pass me during the rest of our leg.I finished my second leg in 45:15:52 which was just under a 10 minute mile. That's a good for me. When Kristi finished her leg we went to Rockport Res. to get some rest. I don't think I slept at all. Then we headed into Midway to get something to eat.
These are the members of our first van. Our last legs were the hottest and thus our hardest.
For my last leg I had to run a mile uphill to the summit of Guardsman Pass and then 5.9 miles down into Deer Valley. I was very hot and in the end very tired. There were two little uphill sections in my downhill that I thought were little until I had to run them. I finished in 1hour and 12 mins. Kristi ran from Deer Valley through Park City and then out to their new Sports Complex. We all went down to the finish line to run with her the last 50 meters and finish as a team. While we were waiting I was suffering the effects of heat exhaustion and got sick but I was able to run with the team across the finish line.

Here is our whole team with our medals for completing the race. I was very dehydrated and it took me awhile to recover but I loved the experience. Next time I think I need a leg that has more time between running and our major stops so I can eat enough and get all the sugar out of my system so I can sleep.