Grand Teton Relay

After our snowy Memorial Day camping trip, we were hanging out with the Sorensons, looking at races we could do throughout the summer. We came across the "Grand Teton Relay". We were surprised to see that we could still register for it (relays tend to sell out very quickly), and even better, Gina found out that her sister-in-law had a coupon for $400 off the team registration price. Bryan said he would be willing to run in it, so we started hitting up people that we knew that might be interested in racing. We found several couples right away, so we went ahead and signed up a team. Marc and I ended up being the team captains and were pretty much in charge of the logistics of our team and the communication between the race director and the team members. We asked a few running stores if they'd be willing to sponsor our team, and Shu's Idaho Running Company agreed to hook us up with running shirts for everyone, socks, and hats or visors, Sweet!

Thursday, August 18, we drove to Ashton, Idaho. We had a fun car trip. A little poker in the backseat, snacks to eat, a movie to watch. It's been a long time that we've taken a car trip where neither Marc nor I were driving!My sweet cousin, Lark, let us stay at her house that night. She met us in town and led us back to their ranch way out in the middle of nowhere! (I didn't believe her when she said that, but I was proven wrong :)
Our team started in Ashton at 9:30 in the morning. We had two vans of 6 runners. Each runner ran 3 legs, the average mileage was about 4-5 miles each leg. Marc and I were in different vans, I was in van 1, he was in van 2....something we'd definitely change if we do it again.

We ran through the beautiful farmlands in Eastern Idaho, and ran up the Highway towards Island Park.
This was what van 2 was trying to do while we were running.
I ran for the first time at 1:00 in the afternoon along the highway in Island Park. It was SO HOT!!! Normally, the vans were able to leap frog with the runners and stay right with them to offer support and cheer the entire leg, but 2 of my 3 legs were "non-support" legs which meant that my van had to wait for me at the end of my leg and I was on my own for the 5.5 miles.
This is my van after all of us finished our first legs. We were feeling pretty tough and gnarly, but already tired and just drained from the heat. We went back to Ashton to go get something to eat and try to rest while the other van was running.
Marc had a grueling 10 mile run for his first leg. From what I hear, he was a rock star and flew through the hills. We were all faster than our estimated times, but van 2 was significantly faster. We (van 1) were still trying to get comfortable to try and sleep a little bit when we got the phone call that the last runner was starting and we needed to leave to meet up with them. Our biggest challenge of the race was that our team was way faster than anticipated, and we were flying through the course before we were "supposed" to. Here are the tetons at sunset:

Van 1 took over as the sun went down. It was really hard to get pictures in the dark. Several of our legs were "non-support" so we just had to sit and wait for our runners to come in. All they had was a little headlamp and a reflective vest, so by the time we saw them we didn't have much time to take a picture.I ran my second leg at 12:00 at night. My leg was called "The Sasquatch". It was along the "rails to trails" (old railroads were ripped out and trails were created in their place). Essentially, I was alone, in the middle of nowhere. As I was talking to my cousin before the race she said "didn't they tell you that area is heavily populated with bears??" LOVELY! I was terrified. I had a little headlamp to see with and it only lit about 3 feet directly in front of me. There were these giant sagebrush in the hills along the path and each one looked like a bear to me. I went as fast as my little legs would go just hoping to see some type of light to indicate the road where my team would be! I finally spotted them and was never more happy to pass the "baton" and get back in the van!
Our van handed off to van 2 at about 2:30 in the morning (that was originally when I was scheduled to run my second leg). We were exhausted. We tried to make it up to the Grand Targhee, which was the next major van exchange, but our driver, and the rest of us, just couldn't keep our eyes open to safely get all the way up there. So we pulled off and found a spot to sleep just off the highway. I was the main communicator with the other van, mostly because Marc and I have Verizon and ours were the only phones that still had coverage. I was relying on waking up to Marc's phone call, and we figured we could get a good 3 hours in before we needed to worry about anything. My phone slipped down between the seats while I dozed off and I didn't hear it ringing. I woke up about 4:30, hadn't heard from the other team yet, but started worrying that maybe we didn't have coverage in the area we were in. I couldn't find my phone, so I woke up Danny and had him charge his phone real quick so we could try and call the other team. He finally had enough juice to call and was received by a very loud and frantic team saying "WHERE ARE YOU! We've called and called. We've gone up and down this hill and can't find you. We're running your legs." We woke up everyone else.....and grudgingly drove to find the rest of the team. Not exactly the wake up call you want! We took over a little after 5:00. The sun was just starting to peak out.

I ran my third leg at 7:00 in the morning. The air was fresh and crisp, the views were amazing, I just couldn't get my legs to go! It was a slow 5 miles. I kept expecting someone to catch me but we never saw any other teams for the duration of the race.
This is most of the team (we were waiting for Lane to climb 3 miles up the pass before you drive down into Jackson Hole).


Marc's final leg was 5.5 miles down a fierce hill (10% grade) going down into Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He was right on the shoulder of a busy highway, narrowly escaping semi-trucks, and averaging 6 minute miles.
We waited for our last runner at the finish line and all crossed it together. It was a satisfying moment and I'm glad we got to do it as a team. We got these fancy medals, but most of us would have traded them for some decent food. Our reward for running 184 miles in 27 hours? Two cartons of chocolate milk, and two rolls. It was really lame and we were all pretty upset about it. But we finished! We were the third team to cross the finish, and the 6th team overall in time to complete the race, not bad for just going out to have fun!
I think there's definitely another relay in the future for us. We definitely learned a few things that we'd do differently, but overall, a great experience and a lot of fun memories and new friends.