This weekend, we (meaning mostly Chris, I was there for moral support) took part in an amazing event! Chris ran (I watched) the Wild West Relay. It is insane! A team of 12 runners, running over 200 miles broken into 36 legs of continuous running from Ft. Collins to Steamboat. It was a really fun time bonding with a really great group of people. When Andy (our neighbor) invited Chris to join his “team” I thought they were crazy. I still think that, but now I see how much fun “crazy” can be!

These 12 men and women traveled over 200 miles in 31 and 1/2 hours (running). That is a 9:30 minute mile average! I can barely do that in my neighborhood, let alone up to the top of the Continental Divide!

Here is how it worked. The team (named “get up and get going”) all met up in Ft. Collins on Thursday night. The team is split into two vans. The first van, started with race on Friday morning (at 7 am) The first runner ran his 4.3 miles and then handed the baton over to the next runner who ran 3.9 miles (with van #1 going ahead of each runner to get ready for the next “exchange”). Meanwhile, van #2 headed to the rendezvous spot to hang out for a few hours until the 6th runner in van #1 finished (this continued for over 30 hours).

There was plenty of down time between the three “legs” of the race to hang out, eat, rest and get to know the other team members. Each member ran three legs with a combined average of 13-19 miles. Guess who volunteered for the toughest legs? You got it, my amazing husband! He is an animal who has recently found a new passion in running. During the race, his team mates nicknamed him El Machino (the machine for those of you who don’t speak Spanglish). His first leg was an easy (for him) 3.6 mile run with the first half being downhill and the second half being an uphill. I think he AVERAGED close to an 8 minute mile. That was his “easy leg”. His next leg started at midnight (this is tough enough for the man who has a hard time keeping his eyes open after 10 pm). He ran 8.8 miles and gained over 1600 feet in elevation. Can you say steep? He knocked it out with no problem (of course). His last leg started at 10 am and he ran 5.7 miles and gained 881 feet in elevation. In his final leg, he was literally running on the shoulder of highway 40 up Rabbit Ears Pass and the hand-off to the next team member was at the top of the Continental Divide. This one was a little tougher for him. He was tired (they only got about 2 hours of sleep during the night) and that is a tough climb. We caught him (from our drive from Denver to Steamboat) about 1/2 mile from the end of his run. He said he was really hurting, but he looked great to me. I was SO proud of him!

Overall, it was a really fun weekend with some really great people! After the race, we went to our hotel and swam, hung out, played (the runners were all pretty delirious, but in great spirits) and then had dinner together at the base of the Steamboat Ski area. A good time was had by all.