WASATCH BACK RELAY

DONE…DONE…AND DONE- LEGS 1, 2 and 3

June 19-20th I ran in the 188 mile Wasatch Back Relay with a team of 11 people Now, if I had only known what I what I was getting myself into… j/k knowing me I still would have done it Lets just put it this way… this race is one that definitely pushes your body to the max. A few weeks ago my friend Angela called and told me that she had a sponsored team for the relay but no runners and wanted to know if I’d be in.

I told her definitely! We ended up filling all the spots on the team in the next few days. We had two team meetings to try to organize it all so we knew the distances we each had, along with our times. We all chose a number and I was runner 8. Each member ran three legs, each with different miles and levels. We had two vehicles with 6 people in them; I was in van #2. I borrowed my Uncle’s suburban, which worked out really well. My team was scheduled to start at 9:30am so the plan was for Van 1 to go up to Logan where it started on Friday morning. The second van was to meet up with van 1 at leg 5. I’ll just say right now that from the time we got in the car Friday morning until we got out of the car Saturday night was chaos! It was a little crazy getting up to the location wher

e the other van was, we got lost at

least once but eventually made it. The race started in Logan and ended in Park City, so most of it was through canyons and over the mountains. It was beautiful there. My first leg was around 5:30 pm and was 3.5 miles. It was a little hard

because it was extremely hot and most of it was on a slight incline. My team would drive a mile or so ahead of me, stop and give me water then drive to where the next exchange was. At that point we would switch runners then follow them along the way giving them water. After everyone in our car finish running, van #1 would take over until they ran there 6 legs then we

would switch again. We did this pattern three times to the finish. After our first switch we headed to a home of a girl on the team, where we had a spaghetti dinner and laid down for about 30 minutes. We had to switch at our second exchange at 11:45 pm where we took over to run through the entire night. My second leg was from 1:30-2:30 a.m. This was my favorite part of the race. I dressed in all my gear, which included, running watch, iPod shuffle, a head light, a reflective vest, and of course glow stick-bracelets for fun! This, I knew was going to be my favorite run even though it was my farthest at 7.1 miles, it was down hill. So I decided because I had such a great leg I was going to try my best on this leg. At times in this leg there were no cars or people around me, I was running on a dark road, and not able to see anything other than the few feet of road in front of me that was being lit up by my head lamp. This was amazing. I ran the 7.1 miles in 58 minutes and also had 13 road kills. Road kills are something that most everyone tracks, what this is, is how many people you pass on each of your legs. Then you mark them on your cars with window paint. After staying awake all night, following each runner and getting water to them, our last person finished at 7 a.m. and I was pretty beat.

We then switch with van #1 and went to the high school of the city we were in, where we rolled out our sleeping bags on the gym floor and slept. We didn’t have much time for sleeping because van #1 legs were all very short runs and our first runner had to start running again at 10:45 so we had about 45 minutes to sleep. I set my alarm on my phone and was out the second my head hit the pillow. I didn’t sleep long and woke up before my alarm went off. I washed up, changed into my running clothes and filled up all the empty water bottles and by that time everyone was awake and we headed out for our final legs. I called my mom, letting her know when and where I would be running. She, My Dad, and Ben were going to drive up to see some of the race. They made it in time to see me at my last exchange where they followed me for a little bit taking a few pictures, then headed home. (Thanks so much for supporting me, I love you all!) After they drove off I continued running and saw a poster board that said, “Way to go Sarah Strong”. Now from the very beginning of the race, I had no idea where I was, what direction I was facing, and if you asked me to get home it probably would have taken me a while to figure it out. This is because we were driving in all direction, in and out of small towns, in and out of different mountain ranges, and on no major roads. But at the point that I saw the sign I realized where I was, for the first time it looked familiar. The sign was put up by Todd, who I work with. He lives on the street my last leg was on, which was through Midway and up past Soldier Hollow. This final leg of mine was the hardest of all three. It was a total of 6 miles and up hill the entire way, with no flat or down parts. It started raining on my last leg and by the time I was finished I looked like I had jumped into a pool of water. While running the last 6 miles I realized then, that this race definitely pushes you to your limit. I had already run 10 ½ miles total, 7 of which, in the middle of the night, and with not much food in me and only 40 minutes of sleep I was pretty much ready for the end but I pushed through it all, all the thoughts that make me want to stop, all the pain that I was feeling at that time, and also through the headwind that was so strong it was nearly stopping me in my tracks. The end of that leg was a steep up hill for about a quarter of a mile, where I decided I was going to finish strong, and sprinted up it to the finish were I handed the bracelet over to the next runner and was done! I was definitely ready for the end! I dried myself off, stretched for a few minutes and we were off to follow the next runner.

After we dropped off our last runner our van met up with van #1 at the finish line. We waited for her to come in and when she did, we all ran together across the finish line. Our total time was 30 hours and 7 minutes. At the end they passed out the t-shirt and the medallion for running the Wasatch Back Relay. This was quite the experience and nothing like any race I have done before…Will I do it again??? Is the question people are asking me, and honestly I’m not sure. I did have a great time and met some great people along the way…so we will see…

My next run is the Freedom Run 10K on the 4th of July!