Trail Running Granny

Ardie and I hiked the Desolation trail to the SLC Overlook.  Awesome morning, now lunch with Julie and then chilling  the rest of the  week and tapering for Goblin Valley.

Mom, if you are reading this, tell dad to take it easy this week so he will be fresh for Goblin!!!  Love you!!

early morning run with Odee around the park and thru the neighborhood

decided to make bread and carbo load instead of run!  LOL!  Off to GV tomorrow!!!  

Heading down to Goblin Valley to do a 50K with my dear husband who has been on way to many running trips, and still is so very supportive!  I am so excited to be running with my friends, Laurie, Smooth and Kelli!  Harold will be mountain biking with Laurie's husband Chris so he will be having some desert fun too!  My training hasn't been very good but this is my 7th ultra, I know I can "git er done"!  

My PR for a 50K is 7:11, I doubt I can beat it, but we shall see, maybe if the stars are aligned....

What a fun weekend!  Harold and I took off around 1:00 to head down to Green River, when we arrived at our cabin at Shady Acres we were greeted by Smooth and Kelli  and then Larry and Scott and 4 of Kelli's little ones. It was so much fun visiting, we all drove over to the Senior Citizen's Center for dinner and talked with some of the other runners and  enjoyed a potato bar dinner.  There were a lot of runners from Colorado.  
After we got into bed, Laurie and Chris came knocking on our door, so we visited them for awhile and made plans for our morning ride over to Goblin Valley, about a 45 min. drive.
At 6:30 am Kelli, Smooth, Laurie and I drove over to Goblin with Harold, the rest of the gang were going to sleep in and join us later in the day.   
We saw JD at the start and chatted and got some pictures and then we were off.  I stayed with Laurie for most of the first half of the race, we met a gal from Nebraska and a gal from Logan that we ran with for a while.  The aid stations were great, I was fueled by Tagalongs ( Girl Scout Cookies) at every station.  The weather was beautiful, nice and cool with cloud cover for the first half of the race.  Nice scenery and more hills than I remember. I swear running is like childbirth, you forget the hills and remember all the fun and friends, and the pain is quickly forgotten.

I am not very good at checking the pace but when we reached the half way point we had averaged about a 13. something pace.
Laurie was feeling great and took off, I would see her once and awhile from a far blazing ahead in her bright pink shirt.
After the turnaround I was pretty pooped, by mile 18 I was trying to talk myself into dropping out, Chris showed up on his bike at about that point and gave me a smile and a little coaxing and then Harold showed up on his bike at mile 20. I told him I was thinking of dropping and he talked me out of it, he rode by my side until we were almost at the parking lot of the campground. At this point I was really dragging then this beautiful girl came running towards me looking so strong and it was my Kelli!!!  I could have bawled,  I found out that she finished in 3:59 and then went back on the course to run Smooth in and then back again to run me in. I was able to pick up the pace with her encouragement. Kelli is a running angel!!!!!!!
The last mile running thru the Goblins was tough, it was like a maze running back and forth following the path of pumpkins that were set up to mark the trail, some of Kellis's kids and Laurie's kids were playing and following us around.  I kept telling Kelli I would love to beat 7:11, she was pushing me as hard as I could go, at the very end Laurie and her friend came and grabbed my arms and pulled me up the final hill and I crossed the finish line at exactly 7:11 (point something)
I guess the word is out the course was short because of the rainstorm, but whatever I ran the Goblin Valley 50K in 7:11 and I'm sticking to it!!!!
Thank you Kelli, Smooth and Laurie for such a fun weekend, and of course your cute families!!!!  Harold was awesome. Thanks sweetie, if you are reading this! I love you!