So, some people I know are just as crazy as I am and agreed to sign up for the Spokane to Sandpoint Relay! This is a 200.2 mile run. It starts on the top of Mt. Spokane, drops down and back up to Indian Trail, then curves down through Riverside State Park, to Kendall Yards, then takes the Centennial Trail out to Coeur D’Alene, then north through Rathdrum, Priest River, and finally to Sandpoint. This is a long but beautiful course. Our team started out with 10 people, but apparently 4 had to drop out, so we ended up with 6, when most teams have 12!! Yikes, we were officially considered an ultra team, we were one of 3 running the S2S.

We had a prelim meeting to discuss all the details: food, driving, meeting place etc. It was nice because I had never met Jenni before and hadn’t seen anyone on the team in a while!

So, I’m far from organized, unless it comes to race day, one might suspect I have OCD, but trust me, I don’t! I always like to make a list just so I don’t forget anything. I forgot to charge my phone once before a half marathon, my phone died (which is what I play music on while I run), and I was in misery. Lived and learned from that one. So here is what I do now. Comprehensive lists! And this one was no exception. I had to pack for over 24 hours of misery  fun!! We had to prepare for 24 hours of running with 7 people in a vehicle together with no showers! Hence the wipes and deodorant!

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This is what about half of it looked like

I slacked and didn’t get a ton of pics, so I stole some from Chana, with her permission of course 🙂 We met up at 5:15 am, loaded up the car and headed to the top of Mt. Spokane. We were all in great spirits! Everyone was excited, and even more so when Chana and her husband Eric and brother in law Mike pulled up in the decorated Tahoe!

Almost all of us went to Rogers, so we went with a pirate theme!

Complete with boxes to check after each leg of the race

Meet the team!

Stephanie, the team captain! She took care of all the technical race stuff!

Chana, who helped so much with getting everything organized, shopping, decorating, and food!

Jenni, she was awesome and stayed positive the entire time!

Mike, he was great! Hes a physical therapist and made us all do our stretches! Thank God!

Kris, he was the fun one that made me feel like it was ok to drink a beer after pretty much each leg of the race haha

Eric, he was our die hard driver and drove us all through the night!

And me after my 91 degree 7 miler dyinggg

I have to say, I adore these guys! It wouldn’t have been the same without each and every one of them!

Pic, courtesy of the BF ❤

Mike’s costume game was on point for the win!

As Bob Ross!

As Cheech!

There are a few things I would do differently. And I’m writing this because we’re going to do another one next summer. Probably Hood to Coast (Mt. Hood to Seaside OR) if we get picked for the lottery.

• I would set up a Facebook group and organize training runs with my teammates, a sort of motivational page that would keep everyone, including me, on track and held accountable
• I would pack my own meals. Chana was so sweet and bought a ton of food from Costco. Which was so nice not to have to worry about it. But when I run, I get used to the same food and hate changing it up on race day
• I would make sure we have enough people! I loved the small group for hanging out, but it was really hard only having one van, where most teams have two. If we’d had 2 we could have had time to actually park and rest, or cook a meal rather than an all nighter and a quick sammy on the go
• I would do way more research on each leg, the time of day, temperature, and elevation change. I definitely didn’t do enough of this and it led me to be less prepared than I would have liked to be
• I also would have set more time aside for group meet ups before the race and prior to the start, I didn’t help as much as I would have liked to with meal prep and decorations!
• I planned on getting up at home and doing a treadmill run at 2am, which didn’t happen. But trust me, next year it’s going down!

The 4 mile run at 1am was no joke! Not only was I getting tired, but my eyes were playing tricks on me and I kept thinking I was seeing a man about to jump out of the bushes! It was dark and scary, and I was all alone! But I finished it!

Kris finishing his midnight run!

Kris was having calf pain from the start, he was a trooper but couldn’t take the pain after the 4th leg. So we all finished our 4th legs and decided to call it. To be honest, as much as I would have liked to make it to the finish, I wasn’t sad about not having to run my next leg. 9 miles at what would have been probably 5 am on no sleep just didn’t sound that appealing at the time. We finished a total of about 125 miles at a time, each of us running over 20 miles individually. That’s a success in my book!

After photo:

We looked pretty good for feeling like our mascot:

Another Race…

So, we talked about running the Spokane half marathon, which is October 9th. If you had asked me right after S2S, there was no way. But now its been a couple weeks and I’ve forgotten most of the pain, so it’s about to happen!

No turning back now!!

Here we go…. Have a beautiful weekend everyone!! XOXO ❤