Lake To Lake RELAY

On March 3rd, I ran in the St. George, Utah - Lake to Lake Relay race with 4 of my wonderful friends, Jen, Austin, Amber, and Sarah.  It's a 52 mile race from Gunlock Reservoir to Sand Hollow Reservoir.  We each had two legs of the race, and mine were just over 10 miles combined.  This is the course map.

Our Theme:  "SUPER MOMS"  With 18 kids (and counting) between the 5 of us, we thought it fit well.

We drove up Friday night and went to dinner at the Pizza Factory.  Then Jen had to hurry over to the captain's meeting.  She was a little late getting there, and unfortunately missed the part that said the start time was at 8am.  So based on the paperwork we had, we thought it started at 7am!!!  We spent the night at Austin's parent's house just outside of St. George, then woke up early the next morning and headed to Gunlock Reservoir.  We were running a little late and didn't get there until about 7:10 and we were freaking out because we thought we missed the start.  AND IT WAS 30 DEGREES OUTSIDE!  Austin jumped out of the car (along with a few other people who were starting the race with their teams) and they marked her time before she set off for the first leg of the race.  No one mentioned anything about it starting at 8.  Apparently they give you the option of starting a little earlier if you need extra time.  Which was probably a good idea for us anyway, since we are "Super Mom's" not "Super DOOPER Mom's"!  Not yet, anyway.

Amber is our awesome Vinyl creator.  She made these stickers for the car, and made stickers that we used as templates for our glitter tank tops.

I was given the second leg of the race.  I hate that feeling right before the start of a race.  I get so nervous!!!

 Our first hand off!

The team followed me for a little while, and took my jacket when I got too hot, but then they decided to go ahead to the next exchange and wait for me to finish the leg.  

I came to an area that wasn't clearly marked, and crossed my fingers as I turned down the road, hoping I wasn't getting lost.  I could see the exchange ahead and was so excited, until I got there and realized MY TEAM WASN'T THERE.  I suddenly got really  nervous because the exchange was by a ball park, and I was thinking maybe they had a bunch of porti-potties for another event, until I started asking people and they confirmed that I was in the right spot.  I waited around for a few minutes and there was still no sign of them.  So I called Jen, (because luckily I had my iPhone with me) and it went right to voice mail.  So then I called Austin and she said they had gotten lost!  They were making their way back.

So Jen and I met up a little further down from the exchange, but it worked!

Amber showing off the most important part of the race.

This cool thing was on the route.

We had fun goofing off at this stop. 

 I think this guy was touching Amber's cape for luck.  Hmmmm  Nice line.

 This this guy just wanted to be super like us!

The handoff to Amber...

And the handoff to Sarah.  Amber was so fast, we weren't as prepared as we should have been for this one.

Sarah didn't even have her iPod ready!

So then it was time for round two.

Austin's second leg was completely on trails so we just had to hand off to her and wait for her at the end of the leg.  

The next hand off was to me, but we had to do an "air high 5" because it was across a busy road.

Then I ran my last 4.5 miles through the farmland just east of St. George.  It was beautiful.

 Jen's last leg started in the farmland, then went uphill (a lot) into the red sandy trails.

She passed to Amber, who had to run the hardest leg, with a difficulty level of 10.  Way to go Amber!  One tough chick.

One last hand off to Sarah, for the last and LONGEST leg of the race.  8 miles into the finish!  Another busy road- so another air high 5.

There were quite a few amazing team costumes at the finish line.  And some, wellll.... not so amazing.

Not sure if I want to keep that photo on my blog, but anyway, here's the end where we met up with Sarah and ran into the finish line as a team.

We finished with a time of 8 hours and 27 minutes (I think).  A average pace of 9.75 (not bad considering our few little hiccups).

All done and ready to clean up for the awards ceremony.  And yes, we did win best costume!  Super Moms ROCK!  You ladies are my heroes!