Sun Never Sets on a Bad Bieber

Red Rock Relay 2010!! This is the rockin' relay course. We started at the top of Brian Head Ski resort and descended 7000 feet to Zion National Park. Amazing. We split the 188 mile relay with 12 peeps. Our team...Sun Never Sets on a Bad A$$ changed to Sun Never sets on a Bad Bieber....with none other than a poster of Justin Bieber himself on the back of our suburban as a beacon of hope on our runs!

Our race start began at 1145 on Friday morning, a crisp , chilly lift ride took our 6 runners from our first van to the top of Brian Head for the first descent. Megan Zitting, Laura Lewis, Jordan Edwards, Alex Wilcox, Amy Fish, and I met up with the first van to begin our first leg standing behind the Bieber!
We ran into Ben Mcgrath and John Hill who were on another team about 20 minutes behind us. Competition definitely ensued!
Our Navajo Ninja moves in honor of the beast of a run Jordan Edwards was about to undertake...a grueling 6.5 miles at 11,000 feet!

And why we are 'Beliebers!'...

When we needed water from our support burb or a little shout out of encouragement from the team....the Bieber poster was such a welcoming site because it differentiated our burb from the rest

To Be or not to Bieb! We Bieber!

And who is Justin Bieber?? 16 year old musical prodigy of Usher. His famous lyrics, "Baby, baby, baby, ohhhh, right....baby, baby, baby, ohhh right!" Greatest catchy tune. I plan on singing that song to my husband one day!

Orange soda man!

New experience from Red rock.....I experienced altitude sickness.

Wikipedia defines it as "a pathological effect of high altitude on humans caused by acute exposure to low partial pressure of oxygen at high altitude. It resembles a case of the flu, carbon monoxide poisoning, or a hangover. Symptoms include....nausea, fatigue, weakness, dizziness, insomnia, pins and needles, persistent rapid pulse, peripheral edema, pulmonary edema."

Most everyone on our team had some symptoms that resembled altitude sickness. I was running my first run at 4.5 miles at 9,000 feet when I started getting the chills, nausea, and I felt like I couldn't think straight. At the end of my run, my team was asking me questions and I couldn't understand anything they were saying. I felt like I had fluid building up in my lungs. Definitely wasn't ready for that moment.

The team....my red rock team was just that....they rocked!!! I loved them! There was never a dull moment in our car. And we lost one of our runners to some flu symptoms and it was so cool how fast our team mates jumped on helping our down teammate....

Anyone who knows me knows that I have a huge fascination with World War II. During our runner down moment during the night, I was having flashes in my mind of what it would have been like to be in the Ardennes Forest...I felt like we were getting a small taste.....no soldier left behind, we had to carry our soldier out and replace him. And we were so sleep deprived from our earlier runs but knew what had to be done. I love those epic moments of human struggle and then triumph.

Favorite moments of the run...

The Bieber dance parties

Cheering on our runners

The wonderful 30 minutes of sleep on a lawn chair at SUU's indoor swimming pool with the large air conditioners in the rafters that lulled us into a deep, deep sleep.

Frank and his twin...the moment when Megan freaked out over 'The Creeper!" that her and Katie Squires had seen at their last Ragnar...Frank was adorned in tube socks, shorty blue s horts, and a white tank top that didn't quite back up with the waistline of his shorts exposing some pudge and love handles. Frank turned out to be a cute little man though....Alex passed him up and Frank yells out "Goooood job, goooooood job (total exertion)".

My last run was 5.5 miles, the uphill was 2 miles, and then down 3 miles. I started the uphill on a highway shoulder and about half mile into it, the trail veers off onto a rocky trail up a hillside....i had no way of telling my support burb that I was no longer on the highway. So I just kept going up the hill, hoping that I was going the right way....no other runners in sight.

I turned a corner and saw my support burb parked a couple hundred feet on the road below me. I yelled and waved my hands frantically! "HELLLLLLLLLOOOOOOO!" They finally saw me and I threw my hands in the air....I had no idea what was going on!" But I kept running on, running on. It became a complete desert on the trail and I could no longer see the road, just a continual uphill. I finally got to the top of the hill, and there in front of me.......

Hundreds of miles of vistas

Red rock

Brilliant blue sky

Desert scrub

Bright sun rays

All of Southern Utah......and me. No one else

I threw my fists in the air and with a huge smile on my face that no one was going to see I yelled YEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!! I was on top of the world!

Seeing Megan flying past runners at lightning speed on her last ascent run....it was remarkable....she is sooo fast!

Favorite, favorite moments.....loved being with my team, loved being surrounded by the beauty of southern utah, loved running my heart out to my rap music, loved the serenity of the stars and the quiet during the night, loved the energy of the 2400+ runners!

Okay, and the top favorite moment....clasping hands with my other teammates at the very end and running through the finish line! Triumph! Success! Victory!!

And the best part of all......we took 6th place!!!!!! Amazing Beliebers!!!!!!!!