Family vs. Sawtooth Mountains

In continuing with my playing catch-up game (oh, I'm just getting started), Gary ran a 64-mile relay with my family last month. 6 people, 64 miles, steep mountain . . . this is the reason I finally told my family I am pregnant. I was asked if I wanted to run, and I did. But then I looked at the details of the course, and had to confess I would need a proxy. Gary did such a great job, I'm not invited on the team next year unless someone else drops out.

Anyway, the whole thing got me a trip to Sun Valley-area (Idaho), which is a gorgeous resort area in the Teton mountains. We stayed in a cabinish condo, which Josh still calls, "Our place." Here are Tate and Josh attacking grandpa . . . I think they are actually pretending to be his babies, but the line between those is hard to distinguish. Aunt Kristen is a favorite one to jump on. Here she is with her "Four babies."

Although I slept through a whole lot of it, I am impressed with the tale of the relayers. Poor Team Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch (my dad is Mark) got a start time of 12:30 a.m. . . . two and a half hours before they said the earliest start time possible would be. So, they didn't sleep at all beforehand (tried, but it didn't work for anyone), gathered their headlamps and reflective vests, and drove to the starting line somewhere around 11:00. (No, I wasn't asleep when they left, there were two small cousins that were waaaay pumped to be together . . .) Here's a team photo shortly before the start.

Everyone ran two legs of the relay, approximately 5 miles each. Hannah started them off with blisteringly fast first leg. Here she is right before the start, getting her shoulders loosened up by Cindy.

I like this view of the starting line.

Here's Gary in his gear, preparing for his first run.

Kristen is demonstrating here how everyone felt their ipods saved the race. Couldn't have done it without them, everyone said . . . but Gary. Gary doesn't own an ipod, but the team repeatedly offered to loan him one of theirs. He turned down every offer, claiming he prefers to think as he runs. The rest of the team could not fathom this. His ipod-less run went down as one of the big feats of the race. Hannah ran lightening fast, Kristen ran while sick, Cindy ran up a literal mountain, Sarah got drenched on her run . . . and Gary ran without an ipod. What a man.

Here's my dad toweling off after his second leg. It was pouring when I woke up, so I was sure they were miserable out there running. However, I was told it wasn't that bad, and that their state of the art running outfits dried them off quickly.

Once they were running in the light, they were treated to some gorgeous scenery.

Here's what earned Cindy iron-woman-of-the-race. Her first leg gained 1,331 feet in elevation in only 5.3 miles total. Wow!

They may be hard to see here, but here's the entire team racing to the finish line together. They really did an awesome job, finishing an hour and a half before the race people were ready for finishers . . . kind of a sore spot as they tried to say something beforehand and were ignored, but they really had fun (for real, I'm not just bloggin' here), so it's all good. My sore spot is I was not able to get the kids and myself breakfasted and dressed before the big return in glory, but I was a non-essential part of the finishing process, and I got to eat trout, sausage, and strawberry shortcake with the finishers anyway, so I can't complain. Woo-hoo, they did it!! (Dad, Cindy, Hannah, Kristen, Sarah, Gary)

Later that day Gary drove me and the kids up to show us the route. So gorgeous, and so nice to be zipping along in a car.

Here I am with my runner-man outside the condo. We really wished we'd planned to stay and play . . .

Here you can see that the placed we stayed is a ski resort . . . some of the runs are behind us.

So there you go, they did it, and we all benefited by getting a trip to a pretty locale and a Mark-sponsored carbo-load at an Italian restaurant beforehand. Thanks!

P.S. (For the record-books.) The drive home was actually great, it went pretty quick and we enjoyed talking with each other and surviving on the snacks we'd packed. However, Josh had the tantrum of his entire life at a gas station where he had claimed he needed to go to the bathroom. It was so terrible, I was planning how I would prove he is my child when I was formally accused of kidnapping. I was accused by looks anyway.