Having just mailed our entry for this year’s race I figured it was about time I finished up last year’s race report which has been in writing for about 6 months now. Soon to be followed by Leadville and Hellgate... oh and I'll get around to my 2011 wrap up and 2012 goals before the (MN) winter is over!
I am not sure when we first started talking about doing this race. It was Chris who found it. He’d entered the lottery for the 2011 Wasatch 100 mile but didn’t get in. He was probably on a mailing list after that. In any case, several things about the event intrigued us. It was the inaugural year, it followed much of the same course as the 100 mile race which we knew to be challenging yet beautiful, and then there was the relay aspect of it. Neither of us had ever participated in a relay race but we had both thought about doing the Hood to Coast race and several friends had run the Colorado Outward Bound relay a number of times. Things really started to get interesting when we asked the race director (John Grobbens, same RD as Wasatch 100) if he would allow a 2-person team rather than the 6-person team described on the website. “Sure, why not?” came the reply. Alrighty then, 142 miles in the mountains, with 40,000 ft of elevation change, divided by two. As things came together we realized the race was the week after Badwater where we would be crewing Divesh (see previous post), so we figured we’d work in a bit of a road trip with a visit to Chris’ brother in Vegas. Things really came together when my mother and sister decided they would like a trip to California via Las Vegas. That took care of getting Milly back to Los Gatos and allowed them the same wonderful experience we’d had driving through Death Valley and Yosemite. This was quickly becoming my kind of summer vacation!
