Cache-Teton Epic Relay

Nothing desribes last weekend better than my blog description, "Enjoy when you can, Endure when you must" Twelve of us assembled into The Dirty Dozen for the 191 mile relay from Logan to Teton Villiage in Jackson Hole. 30 hours of Pain, Suffering, and a down right heck of a good time! We had an awesome crew and I'm proud of every one of them. This race is brutal and we tackled it.

Kelly and I each ran a 7, 3, and and 8 mile leg. Surprisingly, the 3 mile was the hardest. With very little recovery time you had to bail back out and push through a 25 minute, give it all you've got, run rather than an endurance pace. After finishing mine and enjoying the ability to breath again I bailed out and ran Kelly's last mile with him to help him forget about the suffering.

Our last legs were the dreaded 8 miles. I was fortunate to get to run the 8 miles in 40 degree weather, uphill in the Snake River Canyon, in a headwind on 1 1/2 hours of sleep. I thought for sure I would die. I suprised myself by turning it in at 75 minutes. I can officially say that I am currently in the best shape of my life. But wait untill next year...the work for 7 minute miles consistently starts NOW. (Ok...it starts Wednseday when I'm fully recovered.) I'm doing great today considering.... just a tad sore. But my toes are black from blistering and I may or may not lose a couple of toenails within the next day or two. Sounds Crazy? It is....and entirely worth it.

Kelly is impressive. He's probably gone running 3 times in the last 2 years and average about 3 miles on those runs. How any person can just bust out a relay with zero training effort....I'm pretty jealous. Talk about the potential to be a kick butt athlete! Hopefully we can talk him into it again next year. After leg two he climbed into the truck and said, "Next time I get to pick the family activity." :-) please please please pick the relay!

Tre' & Savannah: Est 8/6/10

Weddings are a happy day...beyond words. So I won't ruin it with my ramblings. We are so excited about these two...a match made in heaven for sure. Welcome to the wonderful life of marriage. We love you!

Olah Amigos

That's just about the extent of my Spanish. Aside from the "Donde esta el bano?" which is crucial to any trip to Mexico. We returned safely from our wonderful Mexican Vacation. It proved to be somewhat less eventful than our first go around but the mystery still remains the same, "Where the heck is Tulum?" The ruins still managed to evade us. The good news is this time we didn't get lost in not so tourist friendly areas trying to find them. The bad news is that we were in no health condition to even begin our quest.
We did however, manage to sneak our "weapon" through customs. Here's a little blurb of our conversation as we are hoping we don't get into trouble for it.
"Your backpack"
"Huh"
"You're still wearing your backpack"
"My what?"
"You didn't put your backpack through the xray thing"
"Uhh...OH! Should I..."
"Nope! Just keep on moving"
Yup...somehow we only got the half search at customs.

We did manage to venture over to Cozumel one day and enjoy the beaches. It was a nice cool off from the sticky humidity and heat and and that nasty helmet chin strap. Talk about the perfect ingredient to make a person irritable. We had a little too much fun in the sand and missed the ferry back that we were hoping for. On the way back we hit a nice rainstorm, Kelly enjoyed it a little more than the rest of the commuters, myself included. I got a tad sea sick with all of the rocking.

Just like always, we cut it close. We docked up at Playa Del Carmen at 4:45. Our bus waiting clear across town to take us back to Puerto Adventuras was scheduled to leave at 5:00 on the dot. We learned something in that exhausting 15 minute full force sprint in the rain. 1- you don't get heckled to buy junk if you run full speed ahead with a purpose. 2- running through crowded streets is as cool as it looks in the movies. 3- I'm a much better runner than Kelly. :) As we drug ourselves onto the bus just in the nick of time we collapsed into our seats. Me with a big grin on my face, Kelly saying "never make me run again".
And we never ran again. We stayed on the beach. Sunburned ourselves and swam. It was a gloriously relaxing, lazy and wonderfully gluttonous vacation. I'm ready for more!