You just ran 11 miles, are you ready for an ADVENTURE?!

It's just after dawn, it's cold, it's rainy, I'm with a gaggle of about 200 runners all wearing leggings and long sleeves huddled around a "Start" banner in the middle of the red rock desert near Moab, UT.  Offspring is blasting through the morning dampness as a feeble attempt to pump up the hardy souls who came out for this race. 

 "I won't pay, I won't pay ya, no way, Na-na Why don't you get a job!"  

I haven't heard this song since high school and it is pretty apparent that I'm the only one of my friends who ever was a fan of the Offspring, but I sing along anyway.  My friends and I dance around and take silly pictures wearing trash bags.  

I think Heidi and Kristin are maybe playing patty-cake here?

Kristen let me share her trash bag.  What a friend!

The silliness distracts me from the pre-race jitters that tag along with my thoughts, "What if it's too hard?  What if I get lost?  What if everyone leaves me behind and I have to run alone?!"

Buuuuutttttt I know that won't happen.  I came with the best group of girls EVER!  Heidi, Kristen, Kristin, and Emily.  It's Emily's first half marathon and she is only 15!  She is indubitably a champion.

We Start!

And then we wait for all the runners to funnel through a tiny sing-file trail.

I'm in blue, then I think Heidi, Kristen, Kristin, and Emily

Then we run up a huge hill that is muddier than the ring of a circus tent in a rainstorm...with the rain getting in the tent.  Maybe it came in from the bottom.  Or maybe the elephants were outside in the rain and it dripped off them when they came in.  You get the picture.

Then we do lots of fun things that I didn't get pictures of!

We scurry up rocky inclines

We skid down loose gravel

Fog swirls around the spires and arches of Moab.  We feel lucky to see the desert in such a rare and rainy state.  It stirs in us an appreciation for the beauty and diversity of this earth...and also makes us feel wet and cold.

At the first aid station (as in first in a series of aid stations, not as first aid kit) we are dubbed the most cheerful group by the aid stationeers who CAMPED OUT IN THE RAIN for us!  I like them, goes without saying.  There they had this wonderful stuff called Gu.  

It's like chocolate frosting with caffeine in it and it's "healthy" for you!  I almost never drink anything with caffeine in it, so I REALLY felt that hit! I ate one of those, and the rest of the race was downhill from there WOOOOHOOOOO!!

No, literally the rest of the race was almost all down hill, the aid station was around mile 6.

See that really steep decline at about mile 9?  That was basically rock scrambling down the side of a mountain- totally awesome.  I felt like Pocahontas...maybe for a minute there, I was Pocahontas!  (grandma says we're related to her, I can definitely see it)

Then we saw our fan club!  They were sooooo cool!  As you can see, they are quite bundled and no less enthusiastic!

Kime with the Hot Legs sign

Our noble and loyal fans RUNNING WITH US!  We were cresting a huge hill so it was the perfect place for them to be.

The Five kickin' up some mud.

This looks kinda scary but it was actually one of the most mild parts of the course.

So we're at mile 11.  We're feeling good.  Mile 11 means you're going to make it.  I'm still buzzing from a second Gu I ate at the next aid station.  We come hopping down some rock ledges to the river.  There's a dude standing across it.  I stop short and look at him quizzically.  There doesn't seem to be any more trail....He chuckes, 

"This is the adventure part!  The river IS the trail now!"  

I yell across the river to him, "Uhhhh I JUST RAN ELEVEN MILES!!  Shouldn't the adventure have been like waaayyy earlier?!  I feel like you like telling people they have to get in the river!"  Ok, so I only thought that across the river to him.  

"The best thing to do is commit, get in the river and run!"

I steeled my nerves, and plunged in.  On a scale from 1 to 10, with 10 being the cliff jumping lake in the pass with ice bergs floating in it, this was only about a 6.  But a 6 will still make your feet feel like icy stubs after about 1 minute.  We probably spent a good 20 in that water.  By the end I could have been running on chips of glass and I would have had no clue. 

 I want to complain, but I can't because it made for such a great story, didn't it?  And truthfully, I loved every second of it.  I loved that it was hard.  I loved that it was at the end of the race.  I loved that it made my feet hurt and my shoes squish.  I jumped with all my might into one of the last puddles just for good measure.  

Little did I know, any muddiness is soon to be washed away.

The race is almost over, maybe half a mile to go.  My knee is starting to really bug me and I'm getting impatient to get to the finish line.  We come to a spot where you kind of have to skirt around the river on a cliff face- everyone is going one at a time, and going reeaaalllyyyy slow.

"Someone should check how deep that water is!" a fellow runner suggests.  Me, the expressive, volunteers without knowing what I'm getting into.

The first few steps were about mid-calf and then WHAM!  I'm swimming!  The runners around me laugh and yell down "Thanks for taking one for the team!"  I laugh too, and when I get out my knee is numb again so I could finish the race pain free!

And here I am at the end of the race, pain free and soaking wet!  I hate this picture for every reason except that it shows exactly how I was feeling!

Kristin, Emily, and Heidi (All sisters) Coming up the last hill before the finish line!

Before

After!

This was by far the BEST race I have EVER done!  The scenery, the company, the caffeine, the terrain, and the adventurosity that I live for made it what it was.

We plan on making it a yearly tradition!  There is a marathon, half marathon, and 5 k - Any takers for next year?!  (I made this sentence a link to the race webpage, I'm so fancy.)