Red Rock Relay- 2011

My dear friend Dayna, the one I trained for the marathon with, called me last spring and said that she was putting a team together for the Red Rock Relay in September, and asked if I was in. I, of course, said yes. Anytime I can hang out with Dayna I am in. A few weeks later, I began having some health issues... palpataions with my heart and pain in my lungs when I took deep breaths. I called Dayna and said I was out.
About 6 weeks later, my health issues resolved and I began doing a little running- just 2-4 miles. Then while I was in New York, Dayna text me and said they had 2 runners drop out and asked if I knew of anyone that would want to run. I told her I was back in and that I ould find another runner. I asked Kami, but she was going to some Vikings game in California. I started thinking of who else would be fun to ask. I had decided that I would ask a friend from work. But, before I asked her, I decided to call my dear friend Kellie who lives in Colorado and see if she wanted to run with us. I really didn't think she would, but thought it was a good excuse to call and talk to her anyway. I called and asked if she wanted to come to St. George and run in a relay race. She said, "Yeah, I am totally in". I said, "Okay, well go ahead and talk it over with Gary and then call me when you decide". Then she yelled in the background, "Hey Gary, I'm going to St. George to run the Red Rock Relay with Kori!" Then she said to me, "Okay, I am in". I was excited, but fully expected her to call me in a couple of days and cancel. The next day she registered for the race and sent me her flight itinerary. I was so excited that I was kind of skipping around the house.
Kellie flew in on Wednesday, September 7th, two days before the race. I was sicker than a dog. I had developed the respiratory infection that Russ and Gracie had been battling at Yellowstone. I didn't know how I was going to run the race, but with Kellie here and the race being 2 days away, I didn't feel like I could back out. It was so much fun having Kellie stay with us. I think we wore her out. Her kids go to bed by 8:00 and she and Gary go to bed not long after that. My family is just getting started at 8:00. We usually don't eat dinner until 8:30 or 9:00 when the boys get home from football practice. Then my kids go to bed between 10:30 and 11:00. Anyway, Kellie was a trooper and just went with the flow.
On Friday, Kellie and I met Brady and Shanda at Dayna's house. Brady was our driverand Shanda was one of our teammates (she was the only one I didn't know). The four of us met Katie and her baby, Heide, in Cedar City and we drove to the start of the race at Brianhead ski resort. I was to run the first leg. I found out the day before the race that I had to take a 20 minute ski lift ride to the top of the mountain. My first leg was a 3 mile run down the mountain. It was a crazy trail run. I had slate rocks sliding out from under my feet, logs and streams to jump over, boulders to trip over, weeds as high as my armpits to run through, etc. I am sure it was beautiful on the mountain, but I was afraid to take my eyes off of the trail for fear of what I might fall over. I made it down 2 minutes ahead of my projected time. I passed off to Katie, who had a wicked uphill run for 7 miles. She was amazing. Katie handed off to Kellie who had the worst leg of the entire race. She had an 8.4 mile run that started all uphill. When the course finally leveled off, it started to HAIL! It was HARD, BIG hail. Just so you get the idea of how bad it was, I took a picture of Kellie's legs that got bruised from the hail. Then it started to thunder and there was lightning all around us. I thought she would never forgive for getting her into this race. However, she just laughed and said she felt "tough" for having finished that leg. I agree, she was so tough! I would have got in the car and cried until it all stopped. Good job Kellie. Kellie, then handed off to Shanda. While she was running, Brady drove down the mountain a little ways and picked up Dayna and Jill (I have run 4 of these races with Jill- she too is so much fun to be around), the last two runners in our van. They had to come up late due to work and babysitting conflicts. They made it in time and we finished our first legs. We then drove to Cedar City and had dinner at the Pasta Factory while our second van of 6 runners were running their legs. After dinner we drove to the exchange point at SUU and waited for van 2 to finish running their legs.

While we were waiting as SUU, my parents drove up and met up with us there.They were kind enough to stop by my house and pick up our sleeping bags which I forgot to bring and my camera. They tried to take a few pictures of Kellie running her second leg, but they didn't turn out so well. My second leg did not go so well. I had a 5.5 mile run at midnight. I was having a hard time breathing because my nose was completely plugged and my lungs hurt if breathed in too deep. After my run, I coughed for about 45 minutes straight. I was really having a rough time. We ran to New Castle where we slept for 3 hours before our last legs began in Veyo. I had been the last runner of our second legs, and then I was the first runner of our third legs. I hadn't gotten much rest, and we were late getting to the exchange. Our other van of runners had finished their legs and we weren't at the exchange. They were not too happy with us. Needless to say, we raced into Veyo. As we were pulling into the exchange point, a little pick-up truck came flying through the intersection with the horn blaring at 5:00 am and almost side swiped us. Then the little truck drove toward a group of runners off to the side of the road. I jumped out of the van and worked my way over to the start. As I was jogging up to the start, I heard screaming with lots of vulgar language. The lady who had been in the little pick-up that almost hit us was out of her truck and absolutely irrate! She was screaming that the runners' f***ing headlamps, and f***ing vans, and f***ing this, and f***ing that, had made her late for work. She then said that she was going to f***ing kill a runner so they would have to shut the race down. The men she was screaming at tried to calm her down but were unsuccessful. She jumped in her truck and drove down the road a little ways. She then backed her truck up so that it sat perpendicular across our running course. And guess who the first runner was to be approaching her vehicle? "Guess, guess... I only have one minute left in my brain- so guess" (a little blurp from Kid History episode 6- our new favorite). Anyway, yes it was me. Two men were standing there and said, "Good luck" and "Be careful up there". Goodness, thanks for that encouragement. I said, "How about an escort, some bodyguards?" So they ran with me. She didn't try to kill me, but I sprinted up the Veyo hill, looking over my shoulder the entire time. Kellie ran our last leg and our van finished our legs about 10:00 in the morning. Our second van finished the race around 2:00 that afternoon in Zion. The race was a blast and it was so fun to hang out with my friends for a couple of days.