188 Mile Red Rock Adventure

In mid-June, my lovely sister-in-law Heidi got me excited about the Red Rock Relay - an incredibly scenic, 188 mile, 12 person running adventure in southern Utah. It sounded perfect -- just intimidating enough to ensure I'd really prepare and an excuse to hang out with cool people in one of my favorite parts of the world -- so I committed to do it. Luckily, 11 other fantastic family members and friends agreed to join Team Deadrock and run it with me, and more than any landscape we could have been in, the team is what made the weekend unforgettable:


Team Deadrock
top (L-R) Art, Vaikko, me, Justin, Hannah, Doug, Mikael
bottom (L-R) Tricia, Heidi, Shannon, Jennifer
(Jaron showed up later)

  

















First a little race background: each person ran 3 separate legs of between 3 and 8 miles, averaging 15 miles per person.  That means most of us got to run at least one leg in the heat of mid-day, surrounded by awe-inspiring red rock vistas:

My brother Vaikko Allen the Iron Man

Although that also meant we got to run in the middle of the night surrounded by ?

We gathered the team together on Friday at 9:05 am at Brian Head Ski Resort

then rode the chairlift up to about 11,000 feet (freezing our butts off):

to cheer on Tricia, my brave sister-in-law who kicked off the race for us. She just started running for the first time in her life a few months before the race and ran with taped up feet because of a bad case of plantar fasciitis -- definitely one of my heroes:





Along the way there were highs (like 10,000 feet high - not a lot of oxygen!), lows (cluttered, increasingly smelly vans, ludicrous hills that just appeared out of nowhere in the middle of your last leg),  and in-betweens (1 hour cat naps between legs, mediocre food and port-a-potties galore with no Charmin in sight). 

But mostly the highs stand out - an incredibly supportive team of tired but happy runners:



Mikael "After" Berner



Jen "HILL billy" Bingham

Shannon "Swish" Bousfield

Doug "Kung Foot" Sharp

Vaikko "Mercury" Allen

Art "IV" Morrill (he ran 4 legs!)

Heidi "Last Leg" Edwards

as well as Justin, Hannah and Jaron (wish I had pictures of you running!).  A bunch of awesome people cheering each other on, encouraging each other to finish strong, and recording our badges of honor (another stripe on the arm or leg) after each run:


Jennifer finishes her third leg of the race!
















Finally, 30 hours later, we all crossed the finish line amid screams, tears, and some pretty sweaty bodies:

finish line!!!!!!!!
















no more legs to run!



The best reward was the satisfaction of finishing something really hard together as a team:



We ROCK!!



After a post-race lunch of fish tacos and a good night's sleep, I can say this was one the great experiences of my life. I had a ball spending time with family and friends and proving to myself that I could do it. If you don't have plans yet for September 2011, and you're looking for something super cool, inspiring and mildly painful, this should absolutely be on your list.  I'll definitely be back!

*You can see more pictures of the runners and some of the places we ran through here (be sure to look for us scrambling to clean the paint, or 'team spirit', off the rental van, Doug running barefoot on 120 degree asphalt, miscellaneous wildlife and all the beautiful scenery!)