The KodaFit Blog

I finally finished up my report on the Red Rock Relay late last night. It’s only taken me 6 months to do! I’m afraid it’s a little long, but hopefully I can make up for the length with interesting details and lots of pictures!

The inaugural Red Rock Relay was held over the first weekend of September this year.  I can state unequivocally that it was the funnest event I’ve done to date.  I’ve had some pretty awesome races, but there’s something about completing a challenge like this with a group of friends.

This journey began with a few folks from my tri-club talking about getting a team together.  I found myself team leader, and the quest to find 11 other people began.  Initially we kept it closed to Sharks only, but as time marched on we recruited friends, family members and anyone else who we could.  With just days before the dead line we reached our full team, and then the wheels fell off.  Two members had to drop for work commitments, another had to pull out for school commitments, several simply fell off the face of the planet, and before we knew it, there were 2 of us.  Not the best idea when contemplating a 180 mile race.

Fortunately as things looked bleakest, I got an email from Tanya Boyer, Editor extraordinaire over at TriHive - now Rocky Mountain Running and Triathlon magazine.  They were trying to organize a couple of triathlon specific teams for the race and were wondering if I would be interested…

 WOULD I?!!?

We ended up joining forces with two teams organized by Keena Schaerrer, a pro triathlete and coach from Utah County.  If you live in the area and you need a coach, I’d highly recommend Coach Keena.  She’s an incredible athlete, and her personality and optimism are second to none.  She hasn’t coached me, but if I lived closer, I would have no reservations at all about subjecting myself to her expert coaching.

Keena had organized two teams, a fast team and a fun team.  Not being an exceptionally fast runner, I opted for the fun team, as did fellow sharks Chuck and Jim.  We had a quick meet & greet at Keena’s studio the week before and with that we were all set for race day.

I took the family down to St. George a day or two before, and grabbed our box of stuff the night before the race at Brian Head resort.  It was a little nippy when we got there, and so I was a little nervous as to how it would be the next day.  Brian Head is up above 10,000 ft - which factors in later on.

The next morning, I woke up early, grabbed Chuck and some emergency donuts and headed up to Parowan to meet the rest of our team.  This is where things go interesting…

Google maps gave us some great directions to get to the meeting point, all of County maintained roads.  One of the roads though looked a little less that impeccably maintained.  In fact if we’re being honest it was little more than a washed out dirt track, although much of the washing was still taking place.  After some mis-communication - mostly on my part, Chuck and I headed down the track, bouncing in and out of the ruts and splashing through puddles.  All fun, until we got halfway down, and figure that we couldn’t make it any further.  We turned around well enough and headed back the way we came.  About half way back, we hit a rough section and took the right side of the road, instead of left, and then came the two worst feelings in the world.

THUMP!  As the van slid into a very large rut, and the bottom of the chassis hit the road…

And then the sick feeling that we were stuck.

We tried to pull it out, by any means necessary, all without success.

The remainder of the team arrived as well, and all had a good chuckle.

Fortunately Jim kept his wits, and left to find a tow truck and to try and get our start time pushed back.

15 minutes later, a jeep and 2 trucks arrived, although with a handful of the good old farmer types, making smarts comments like….  “Why were you trying to drive down this road anyway?”  and “I think the problem is that you got yourself stuck in the mud!!”

We tried the first truck without success.  I drive a Ford Windstar and one of the reasons I got it, is that it weighs about 1,000 pounds more than most other vans.  Good in an accident, not so good for getting out of mud.

Then we tried the jeep, complete with winch and we managed to drag the jeep closer to the van, but no progress with the van at all.  At this point, I was about to cry and the rest of my awesome team were having a great time taking pictures.  Huge thanks to Sherri and Chuck for most of the pics below!

After trying both the jeep and truck, a mechanic looking type told them to move and pulled up his big truck.  He tried to pull slowly and slid around, tried a few other moves, and then finally just got lined up and hit the gas.  Mud flew!  I wished I had closed the windows, and that big old truck just dragged my van all the way back onto the road.

Words cannot quite describe the relief!!!  I handed the guy almost all the money I had in my wallet, practically hugged him and cried on his shoulder like a little boy, and then rounded everyone up and headed up the mountain.

These are most of the runners for the first vans for both teams.

Fortunately the Race Director pushed our start time back, and I think it was finally about 9:40, and me, Keena, and another runner hopped on the ski lift and headed up the mountain to start the race.

The weather was perfect, and while mentally I was spent, it felt great to sit on the ski lift and enjoy the scenery.

Up the top, we hopped off and began our descent.  First off, as I hopped off, I felt a twinge of pain in my left foot.  I’m not sure what I did, but it developed into a nasty pain which got worse as the race wore on, and stuck with me for 6 weeks following.  I followed Keena and the other runner down the mountain, but started to slow because it felt like we were going to fast.  I check my Garmin and saw that I was barely at 9 min/mile pace, and I was going downhill, which was fine except my heart rate was 30 beats above normal, and I couldn’t breathe, and that’s when Keena mentioned the altitude.   Running at 11,000 feet is quite a bit different from running at 6,000!

I took a break after the first mile for a quick bathroom break - I think altitude makes you need to pee too - at least that’s my excuse, and then continued down the mountain.  The views were phenomenal, but I really struggled with the altitude.  4 miles down I came into exchange 1 and handed off to the next runner on our team.

While I was up the mountain, Sherri and Anita had taken to decorate the van, complete with nick names.  I was hereafter known as MudBogger, for reasons which I’m sure you can all guess.

The remainder of the morning was spent moving from place to place, swapping out runners and supporting them as best we could.

Here we are at the second exchange, complete with awkwardly placed Gatorade bottle by Yours Truly!

At one point we had to drive through an entire flock of sheep and all along we were treated to absolutely incredible views.

If you happen to run leg#4, I would highly recommend taking a small detour as you pass the viewing platform for Cedar Breaks!

Our final runner go to run 6 miles down a rather steep, narrow mountain road, which had some scary traffic, and which I stopped half way down to find the brakes smoking something fierce.  It’s amazing the difference between having small kids and full grown adults in the car!

We finished leg #6, and handed off to our second van.  Having a couple of hours to kill, we headed down the Cedar City and spent a couple of hours hanging out in the parking lot of Subway.  We ate, we laid around, I learned that a BLT from Subway will go really soggy if left overnight, and after a couple of hours it was time to head back up into the mountains.

On our way to rendezvous with the second van, we followed the runners route up three sections, known as the diablos.  They were only 2 miles legs, but were very steep and absolutely relentless.  At the top we merged onto a dirt road, and found after 5 or 6 miles had caught up to the rest of our team.  It was raining, and the dirt road was pretty slick.  At one point right before we passed our other vehicle, a nice big truck, we hit a sharp incline, and the van started to slide off the road.  Flashbacks of the mud bogging incident earlier in the day flashed across my mind, while the remaining occupants of the van all shouted encouragement.

My second leg began at Kolob Reservoir.  It was pretty flat for the most part, and I was fortunate enough to get behind a runner from another team.  I always run better with a rabbit in front of me, and finally at mile 4, I passed her.  It was also starting to get dark, and so it was time to done the reflective vest and the head lamp.

I believe this section of the race goes through some incredibly scenic country, unfortunately night fell very fast, and it was really black outside.  Sections of Zions required us to transport our runner from one spot to the next as well.  We suspect that Zions Park itself hadn’t issued permits or something.

We also started to notice lightning on the horizon.  Legs 16 and  17 were an out an back section along a relatively flat section of road.  I ended up running part of section 17 with one of the runners to help pace and provide a little extra support.  The final section involved some hilly parts of the highway, and then a long drop down into Hurricane.   The thunder was getting more and more intense, and at times, it seemed like we were the only vehicle for miles and miles.

As we hit the change over in town, the heavens opened and it was poor Chuck from the second vehicle that got to bear the brunt of it.  We headed into Washington City, to the rec center where showers and floor space were available.  I tried to sleep a little in the van, but was too pumped up on adrenaline to do much.  Finally around 4 or 5 am, we received word that the other half of our team was getting close, and so we packed up and got ready to head out for our final section of the course.

Unfortunately for the other runners, the Rec Center closed right as they got there, but I believe they found themselves a Denny’s and sat down to a good breakfast.  My final leg ran through Washington City, past the In n’ Out burger, which is unfortunately closed at 5am, and then down to the Virgin River.   After a couple of miles it joined a path which ran along side the water, and all of a sudden I found myself alone.  No vehicles, no other runners and a rather dim headlight.  The rain had cleared and had been replaced warm and damp humidity.  It was my last leg, and I pushed it hard, coming into the change over, as a rather sweaty, mess of a man.

Our second runner was one of the ladies on our team, and unfortunately for her, this next section continued on the rather lonely path, probably not the best place for a single female runner to be, and at one point she found herself right in the middle of a group of SWAT officers, apparently out trying to find the perpetrator of an assault on the path earlier than night.

The next few hours we tracked and followed our athletes up through St. George, into Santa Clara, and then up through the canyon to Gunlock.  This particular part of the race was interesting, since we crossed paths with a series of road races coming down the canyon, and Sherri got to meet up and run her leg with her brother.  It was also interesting, as this is part of the 2 loop bike course for the St. George IronMan.

Our runners did really well, particularly the second to last, and last runner, who got a number of kills on the hills leading up to Gunlock.   The last guy made such good time, that he arrived at the changeover to find the next runner still a little way off, but sprinting like a mad man to make it in time.

We took some photo’s each with our 3 stripes representing our three legs and then headed down into St. George for Breakfast.

The finish line was at a local school and next to a splash pad, although at this point it was starting to get hot, and lack of sleep was really catching up with me.  It was great to see my wife and kids again, and stinky hugs were exchanged all around.  An hour or two later, the second part of our team arrived, and we all ran in together.

With that, we celebrated a little, took some pictures and within the hour were all packed up, organized and ready to head back to wherever it was we came from.

A couple of thoughts…

Organizing a team can be pretty rough.  Last year all the leaders got a nice running jacket with the Red Rock logo on it. 

If I had to do it all over again, I’d get money up front from everyone, and make plans well in advance of the race.

Being it’s first year, I thought it was remarkably well done.  There were a few areas for improvement, but given that it was a brand new race, big old thumbs up to the race director.

A couple of ways they could improve the race…

1 - each team was supposed to provide 2 volunteers.  We really struggled with this seeing as we didn’t have a full team until a week before the race.  We did find one, my brother-in-law, but when he got to his check in station, no one was there to sign him in, or direct him or anything, and so he drove himself to where he thought he was supposed to be and did the best he could.  Unfortunately when my wife asked him if he would ever do it again, he responded with a solid “No way”.

It would take a bit of organization, but I think if the race organizers could find local community organizations to volunteer at the check points, that would be awesome.  I also think it would be great to have some system of checking athletes in and out of the change over spots and perhaps even provide feedback to the teams as to how everyone is doing.

2 - There are sections of this course which probably should not be run alone, particularly female runners - I’m not trying to be sexist here, but since female runners tend to be smaller, running alone on a trail in the dark, is probably not a wise decision.  Specifically the spots along the Virgin River.  Either require pacers at these points, or perhaps station some volunteers at regular intervals along the trail.  Perhaps a local scout troop could be roped into doing it, in exchange for a small donation to their troop.

However, that is about the extent of my complaints or suggestions for improvement.

We’re doing it again this year…We’ve putting together an ultra team and we’re planning on tackling the race with just 6 of us, running about 30 miles a piece.  It will be exhausting, but I think it will be fun at the same time.

We’re going to be The Red Rock Sharks!!

Stay tuned for more information as September approaches!

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