A lot of the goings-on this summer deserve their own posts, but because of the way things flew by, covering each of these things individually will just over tax my blogging abilities.
After our annual Tahoe trip the wife and kids spent a lot of time at the water park. Shauna and I continued our training because we knew we had the Grand Teton Relay coming up in August. We decided to do the Farmington Half Marathon on July 12th with my brother John. It was my first half marathon and it was not quite as hard as I had imagined. John and I ran most of the way together, but John did pull away from me with about one mile to go and finished about 15 seconds ahead of me. John and I averaged 7:18 miles so that was pretty good. John and Shauna were in the top three in their age groups which was pretty cool too.
Farmington is a nice net-zero race (starts and ends at the same place) and best of all they give you free breakfast at the end of the race. The Carliles were also there as volunteers helping out Bryce's brother Mark who is the race manager, so we hung out a bit afterwards and discussed the team for next year's Tahoe relay.
Shauna showing off her hardware and a weird expression.
Mayers and Carliles having an all-American breakfast.
Feeling good post race.
We spent a few days up in the canyons this summer just as I has hope when we moved to Sandy. Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons are so close we can be up in them in 20 minutes. We had a bbq with friends one day and enjoyed the time once it cooled down.
Laney, Joaquin and Jason.
Rubes.
Also got to spend a few days up at the BSA High Adventure Teton camp with the Vasity and Venture scouts. We whitewater rafter, canoed, shot guns and had a blast. This was one of the funnest camps I have been on. The YM thoroughly enjoyed it. They especially liked it after I told them what Tetons means in French.
Playing Munchkin.
All of us in Jackson Hole.
Dino float at Expo Center.
Howling wolves.
"Oh my gosh a princess!"
Bountiful parade with the parents.
Donuts.
Cousins playing dead.
Ice blocking with the Keones.
Two of the three have been losing teeth this summer.
Hanging out shirtless. This is how we roll in the summer.
John put a team together for the Grand Teton Relay that takes place in eastern Idaho and western Wyoming. Four runners were from Sandy and six from Kaysville. We carpooled up with Blake and Aubrey Arvidson and Cami Tribe. Along the way discussion turned to some heretofore unknown-to-me food called bambinos. Apparently these are good enough to drive four hours to eat (just ask Cami)--so naturally we had to try them. We stopped in Rigby and all ordered some bambinos (some of us ordered more than others) and ate them as we finished our trip up to Ashton. The bambinos were delicious and I would recommend them to anyone, but you have to watch yourself if you are going to run a bunch over the next couple of days.
We arrived at the Ashton cabin were we met most or other runners and support crew--John Mayer, Scott and Sara Edgar, Todd and Tiffany Davis, Jeremy and Kelsey Petersen, and Thad and Rachel Kendall. We would start the race the next day at noon so we ate and talked a bit and then turned in.
The next morning we got up and had a big breakfast and went down to the high school in Ashton for the start. The relay is 180 miles long with 36 legs. Each of us would run three legs over the next 26 hours. Tiffany Davis started us off while those of us that did not run until later went back to the cabin to watch movies and hang out. Finally at about 4 we left to catch up with our other teammates who were just finishing leg 6. As we pulled up to find them it became clear that the UFO's (our team name) was in last place. It was hot and windy--and lonely out there and we were wondering if we had been a little too optimistic in reporting our times to the race directors.
Thad took over for Todd who passed a couple of people on the last leg (so we were no longer in last place) and made good time through a long hot 9-mile leg. I was up next and had a beast of a climb (they call leg 8 the "LB" for little bastard). It was a 7.1-mile leg climbing about 1100 feet over the last four miles. I was pretty worried about this leg because of the starting altitude of 6200 feet and going up from there. I had been training on hills most of the summer hitting Wasatch Blvd., Dimple Dell Park, and Bells Canyon and I knew how hard these climbs were. Bells Canyon was the only really equivalent run and had wiped me out so I was not too sure about the LB. Fortunately I began running at around 6:30 pm so it was shady and was cooling down. I had no problems and passed four more people on my way to the top.
John followed me and he has turned into a speedy runner after returning to running only about one year ago. He made short work of a 7.7-mile stretch and the game was on. We knew we could make up some serious time as it cooled down. Blake started just as things were getting dark and was able to knock out his run in good fashion. Cami was up next and ran in almost complete darkness along a lonely eastern Idaho road even after news came back that a bear had been spotted on the race course. Cami said she was fine, but did hear a lot of noises out in the trees during her run. Cami finished strong and Shauna took up leg 12 back into the farm fields where we would hand off to our van-1 teammates. Shauna also had a dark forest run and was motivated by some forest noises while she ran. She came in blazing passing more runners and we handed off to van 1 having made up some ground and far out of last place.
We headed back to the cabin and I showered and went to sleep. In the middle of my sleep I was awoken by a lot of noise upstairs and John and Thad were yelling that we had to get in the van asap since the other team was on their last leg and we had some 30 miles to drive. We all jumped in the van and headed to Driggs. Luckly there are few cars and fewer cops on the road at 3 in the morning since John flew to Driggs. Todd had his cell phone with him while he ran and he told us he was finishing so we told him to keep running and we would catch up to him. We thought we had about 8 miles still to go to find him when we stopped at an intersection and a few runners passed in front of us. One of them yelled as we started to pull away and Blake recognized that it was Todd who was now calling us on his cell phone. Thad did not hesitate and jumped out and took over for Todd.
Our van again made some good time during the early morning hours and finished with Shauna again turning in a great run up to Targhee. We finished strong with John up over the pass climbing like 1200 feet in 3 miles--brutal. It was awesome. Enjoy the pictures below.
Ate some bambinos on the way up to Ashton.
.png)
