Top of Utah Half Marathon

So Alan and I were able to do our first Half Marathon. We planned all summer for this event and the fact that it was down in the Logan area made it even better. We drove down with Randy and Wendy Astin on Friday. Kristi Astin met us there and we all spent Friday night at Tawni and Ryan's house. The best part was that we were able to see little Athen! He is so cute! Ryan's parents were able to watch Athen during the race. He is such a trooper.
Ryan's dad and brother-in-law were kind enough to take a few pictures on the way. Here is Tawni and Ryan.

Had to put this pic of Tawni in because it shows that she was sort of feeling the pain. This was at about mile 10.

Alan and I between mile 10 and 11.

Top of Utah continued...

Alan, Tawni and I just went into this race wanting to finish and have fun. It was our first marathon so we took our time. Ryan could have probably finished the race at least 45 minutes faster, but he was kind and stayed with us. Alan and I wanted to finish under 2 1/2 hours. We finished in 2:29:50. How's that for just the nick of time? If it weren't for the fact that I had to stop for nature breaks 3 times we could have finished 10 minutes faster. They had 1 or 2 porta potty's at each aid station and the lines were terrible. That is not enough porta potty's for 2300 people!!!!!

Tawni and Ryan finished in 2:24:42. Randy is an Ironman and finished in 1:50. Wendy is the wife of an Ironman and finished in 2:01 and Kristi is the daughter of an Ironman and finished in 2:16. Randy, Wendy and Kristi have all done full marathon's so they were looking to improve on their times. We are just thankful for the ability to run. Last Christmas Alan couldn't even run across the room. Tawni just had a baby 4 months ago. We are so proud of you guys! What an accomplishment.

Alan and Ryan taking a break after the race.

Girls in Pink! Wendy, Kristi, Tawni and I. What an accomplishment to finish this 13.1 mile race!




Runners! Randy, Wendy, Kristi, Alan, Me, Tawni and Ryan

After we had all showered after the race we went to Bear Lake. The Piggott's were so generous to let us all stay at their cabin. First we went and ate at an awesome Mexican Food place in town. We were quite the sight in our matching green shirts. We paid a lot of money to wear these shirts!!

What a great weekend we had. We were tired, but happy.
.....we are already signed up for our next 1/2 marathon at the end of September. Must be gluttons for punishment.......

The Cd'A Triathlon

So Thursday night we decided to put a couple teams together and compete in the Cd'A Triathlon. We had a men's team and a women's team. Robbie, Alan and Randy formed the men's team. Robbie swam, Alan biked and Randy ran. They were awesome!!!! We don't have the official time yet but they finished in about 2 and 1/2 hours. Wendy, Jenny (Brandon's girlfriend) and I formed the women's team. Jenny swam, Wendy biked and I ran. Cute Jenny just kind of got forced into the swimming. She came into town with Brandon on Thursday because Brandon was doing the whole thing and we asked her if she could swim. She said yes, and that was that. Wendy, Randy, Alan and I before the race.

Wendy coming in at the end of her leg.

Alan and Brandon

Alan came and found me near the end of my run. I was so happy to see him!

A Great Finish

It felt really good to be done and all be together at the finish. What a great Day! The Girls Team...Me, Wendy and Jenny

The over 40 racers.

Everybody knows how old everyone else is because they put your age on the back of your leg. Not just on one but on both. We are proud of our ages.

Afterwards we went to the Astin's and Wendy and Randy made breakfast for everyone. It was time to relax on the back deck. We love our friends!

Our Grandkids!

We took a pic with all the grandkids, minus Athen......Ryan, Tawni and Athen had already left before we thought of taking a grandkids pic with them, so this picture is a little tribute to cute Athen. We love him so much! We are so proud to be grandparents to such awesome and adorable grandkids. Here we have Aiden, Atlas, Emy and Coen. Our next granddaughter is due to arrive on December 3rd. We can hardly wait!!!!

Yellowstone 2010

Alan and I were able to take a little vacation with the Astin's to Yellowstone again this year. We stayed at Wendy's parents cabin again. They are so nice to let us come in and crash. We left after Alan got off work on Tuesday and drove until about 2:30 am to get there. The next morning Randy said we were going to go on a LITTLE mountain bike ride. Ok.....we trusted him at the beginning. A quarter way into the hike we didn't trust him anymore. He said that he had ridden the 4 wheelers on this trail a few years ago.....ok. This trail was for 4 wheelers and animals, not mountain bikes. Our first clue should have been the conidtion of the trail and the fact that it went straight uphill right off the bat. Five hours and 12 miles later (six and a half of it uphill) we finished our LITTLE mountain bike ride. That being said, it was very enjoyable and the view was unbelievable. I think we were at about 10,000 feet at the top.

This pic is of Alan and Randy right on the Continental Divide between Idaho and Montana. You can see the post sticking up. We had already biked/hiked for a while when we saw what else was ahead of us. The picture doesn't do it justice.

Of course we had our bear spray with us in case we saw a Grizzly. (Like I would have been able to get it off my hip fast enough to use it properly. Honestly......)

All the hard work and effort was definately worth it. We won't call this a relaxing vacation it was an "Extreme Vacation".

Hike Continued......

We found some shade and sat down to take a break. The view was awesome.

Our self portrait. Not sure why the person with the shortest arms was chosen to hold the camera.

Hebegen Lake in the back ground. This was about half way back down on the other side of the mountain. It was pretty hairy going down too and we were always on the lookout for bear, but thankfully saw none. We heard many stories of Grizzly Bear sitings this week so we were a little on edge. We actually did get to see a Grizzly on one of the last nights but it was from our truck, the bear was in the trees and it was a small Grizzly....

Our Recovery Day

This was our recovery day. We just did a little mountain biking on a FLAT 10 mile trail. Believe it or not, it felt really good to just take it easy. The weather was so great! Wendy and I with her Dad Jerry. He is so awesome and so nice to let us stay at his cabin. I am getting old enough now that sleeping on a real bed instead of on an air mattress in a tent is really appealing.

View From the Top

This evening we took a drive to the top of Sawtelle Mountain. It has an elevation of about 12,000 feet and the view was incredible. On our last day of vacation we had Wendy's dad drive us all to the top of this mountain and we ran back down. It was about 7 1/2 miles. It was a good way to take in all the scenery. Half way down we had a thunderstorm blow in and rain on us a little. This is a view of the Teton's from where we were standing. At the top of this mountain is a Station owned by the airforce. It was an air traffic control site. The name of the station was obviously named by men and will not be repeated here, but the guys got a kick out of it. If they would have stepped back one step they would have been rolling down the mountain.

This is a view from one of our other hikes.

Bike, Hike, Swim

This day we rode our road bikes from West Yellowstone to Old Faithful. It was 30 miles. Wendy and I took turns. I rode the first half while she drove the truck and she rode the second half while I drove the truck. It was beautiful to see some the park this way. The most dangerous part was all the cars! After the bike ride we went on this hike to see some hot pots and hissing pots.

On our way to Mammoth Hot Springs to get in the water we saw this huge elk.

In Mammoth there was a whole herd of Elk that just hangs out in town. We saw lots of babies and this one was very impatient.

Another elk. This one had a rack of Antler's that was about 6 feet across.

Adventures

We saw this huge elk. He was just eating along the river. So Beautiful Baby Buffalo

This was the mountain we climbed on the first day.


Every night we went into West Yellowstone and got ice cream. We deserved it all the biking, hiking and running we did. What an awesome adventure. On the last night we went to the Playmill and watched the play "The Foreigner". It was hillarious and the acting was phenomenal. We have the best friends and we had so much fun together. Thanks for the memories!

Wendy and Randy