Utah - Epic running and cycling adventures

Running...
RAGNAR - let me explain what a RAGNAR is, it is a long distance relay race for teams of 6 or 12 runners. Wendy was doing this 180 mile relay running race from Logan to Park City in Utah. This is a pretty big deal as each runner has to cover 30 miles in less than 2 days. What made this even harder is that 2 of the runners had to pull out the day before the event. That meant that each runner (all 4 of them) now had to run 45 miles each in less than 2 days. I can't even run 4 miles!! We'll they did and they won their category. It took them just over 30 hours to run the 180 miles, that an average pace of about 6 miles/hour. Not too shabby, huh?

I'm very proud of Wendy, she had some physical issues during the night, but pulled through and kept going. Amazing!!! Next for her is TranRockies in August. This is a 6 day endurance running race with an average of about 20 miles per day... at elevation!!! ... In the Rockies!!!

Cycling...
I, instead of supporting my beautiful wife, decided to go mountain biking in Park City with my friend Dan. We did two rides. Friday we rode for 5.5 hours with about 6,000 ft. of climbing. The trails were awesome and we did quite a bit of exploring. All the riding was on singletrack. Awesome. The next day we rode another 4.5 hours, with 5,000 ft. of climbing. Again, 90% of singletrack with a little pavement to get to the trailheads. We ended up finishing about 500 Yards for the RAGNAR finish line.

This is some of the best riding I've done in a while. All the trails are awesome. Next year I plan to arrange a week long trip to Park City to do lots of mountain biking. Hopefully other folks are interested and we can rent a house or a condo. Can't wait!!

Our next adventure is in about 4 weeks. We're headed to Durango, Colorado to do some cycling and running. Although I probably won't be taking part in the running thing :-)

UK World Family Tour

Our trip to the UK was a whirlwind tour. We saw lots of family, but unfortunately I was not able to take my bike with me :-) We left Phoenix on Saturday morning, flew to Charlotte, NC, then got on our connecting flight to London. Sunday was our 11th wedding anniversary, so our present was to upgrade our seats for the tranatlantic flight to business class. It was a nice present, but the funny part is that even though we had the "bigger" seats, Wendy decided to sleep on the floor. She said she was more comfortable, but I'm not so sure.

When we arrived in London, we went straight to the car rental agency and picked up our car, and started our drive to Scotland - an 8 hour drive!! Jet lagged!! and pouring rain!!! It was not fun. Wendy drove at the start - she didn't trust me driving on the other side of the road - but eventually I took over, at least for a little while. We took turns driving and finally made it up to Wendy's parents house in Crieff, Scotland. We spend 3 nights there. Did a little walking, some running, and lots of eating and drinking.

We left Wednesday and returned South to visit sister #1 - Sue (and her husband Mike and son Daniel). We had a nice picnic and later on, we went out to dinner. Next stop was Friday morning to visit sister #2 - Pam (and husband Steve, son Ben, and daughter Kate). We had never met Kate (now 5 years old) so it was great to meet her. Wendy's brother Steve (and wife Claire and new born baby Emily) joined us at Pam's house for dinner.

I know Wendy really enjoyed being with everyone in her family since we don't get to come back as often as we should. I had a good time seeing everyone, but I had more fun playing with the kids. All of them are gems. Very different personalities, but all good kids.

We made a commitment to go back again every year to see everyone and see the kids grow up. Pictures will be posted soon.