I’ve been a bit absent in the blogosphere this week – too busy celebrating my birthday, entertaining family visitors, and enjoying the 2 plus feet of snow we got in the Wasatch while also trying to catch up with work and recover from my SEND at the Buffalo 50K this past weekend.

So I finished the big race and knocked off numero dos on the life list.  I did it and surprised the hell out of myself.  I don’t think I have ever been so proud of myself.  Not just because I finished the race but also because I finished the race smiling.

Can't believe I am still smiling

The only goal I had for the race was to finish.  I wasn’t aiming for any specific time, I just wanted to make it across the finish line.  Well I guess I had one more goal and that was to finish the race with a smile on my face.  I tend to crash or hurl during the last few miles of the race and usually cross the finish line looking super pissed off.

One unfortunate thing about running in the desert is that there are no trees (or really anything) to obscure your view.  I could see the finish line for miles before I ever got there, which I thought would be torturous but instead rejuvenated me.  I have no idea how I could feel suddenly energized after being on my feet for 7 hours – maybe some sort of evolutionary survival instinct kicked in.  I couldn’t have shed that smile off my face if someone paid me.  I probably ran that last mile faster than any of the other 31 and approached the finish line laughing and smiling.  I was elated or quite possibly delirious.

Feeling stoked pre-race

Halfway through the race I had made a promise to myself that I would never do this again and now I am searching race listings for another.  I definitely draw the line at the 50K though (during my race there was a simultaneous 50-miler, those people must be nuts).  Now that I know I can run a 50K  I want to see if I can pick up the pace a little (since I ran super slow).

Here’s a bit more about the race itself if you’re interested.

Oh so cold at the start!

The Buffalo 50K is on Antelope Island on the Great Salt Lake and involves 2-laps of a sixteen-mile course with amazing views of the Great Salt Lake and the Wasatch, Oquirrh, and Stansbury Mountains.  The course is a mix of double-track and some seriously awesome single-track.  The trail for the most part is rolling with a bunch of steep ascents thrown in.  Quite sandy at times, my new Dirty Girl Gaiters worked fabulous – not only are they super cute, I didn’t even get a grain of sand in the shoes.

The race started at 8am and oh was it chilly.  It was around 35 degrees and the wind whipping off the lake made it feel even colder.  My toes were totally numb the first few miles until we crested the first big hill and got a little sun.  The rest of the day was absolutely gorgeous, the most perfect day I could imagine.

Views of the Great Salt Lake from Antelope Island

My hip flexors cramped up pretty bad at the halfway point and I am pretty sure I won’t do a race again where you need to do multiple laps of the course.  Imagine running 16 miles just so you can return to the same place you started and do it all over again.  Laps suck!  With crampy hips and a crappy attitude, I definitely felt like quitting at this point but I just kept going and eventually got over the hump.

The race peeps were wonderful and I really love the energy of these races.  I didn’t hear a single negative word or catch a single negative vibe out on the race course.  All the other racers are encouraging and supportive – even the pukers didn’t have an ill word to say.  At around the 27-mile point I pass a man that looks like utter death and ask him how he’s doing and he responds, “Great!  I couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful day.”  Sheesh I wish the rest of my world was like this.

The Buffalo of Antelope Island

Tomorrow I am getting up at the ass crack of dawn and running my first ultramarathon – 32-miles of dirt, sand, and rock.  And mind you I am no hardcore – I simply decided to attack something on the life list.

This morning, I revisited the life list hoping to rouse some confidence and panicked.  Then I did what any reasonably human being would do and bought a hula-hoop.  The truth is I didn’t want to fail miserably at the first thing I attempted on my life list so in order to make myself feel better I successfully accomplished a superficial task and purchased a cutie hoop from HipEHoops on Etsy.  Plus I’ve really wanted a serious hula hoop for some time now and it collapses and can fit into a backpack – stoke!

I can’t remember the last time I tried to do something that I wasn’t very well sure I could do – maybe I have never done anything I didn’t feel totally capable of.  I quite honestly don’t know if I can run 32 miles and this isn’t just the pre-race jitters talking.  50-kilometers is a long ass way and up until 3-years a go I had never run over a 5K.  Sure I’ve trained but seriously what the freak was I thinking?!?

Last night I listened to this Buddhist meditation talk and it spoke about acknowledging your fears as away of accepting them and letting them go… So what am I afraid of?  My hamstrings cramping up, hurling, my ankle swelling up (cuz it does that sometimes for no apparent reason), passing out, quitting and then having to tell everyone that I suck, losing control of my bowels (all you long distance runners out there will understand this one and the rest of you will go ewe), weird leg itchy phenomenon, and getting charged by buffalos (yes buffalos).

I know I have the cardio to make it that far but there are just too many other factors and I seriously question the ability of my stomach to deal with such stress.  I love this Sunny Blende quote – “Ultras are just eating and drinking contests, with a little exercise and scenery thrown in.”  I totally agree.  I just get so darned hungry (I am blessed with a super high metabolism) and tend to eat everything in sight at the aid stations.  I regretfully grabbed a handful of candy corn towards the end of the last race I did and sadly hurled them up right before the finish line.

So tomorrow when you wake up – think of me running.  Then tomorrow when you are enjoying your weekend brunch and drinking mimosas – think of me running.  Then tomorrow when you are reading a book and taking your afternoon nap – think of me running.  Then tomorrow when you start thinking about eating dinner – think of me still running…

One of the first places I wanted to visit after ending up in Salt Lake City (for reasons still unbeknownst to me) was the Great Salt Lake.  Obviously I knew that the lake was salty but I had imagined it as this big recreation area with beaches and lots of people floating about – a place I planned on spending much of the summer.  In truth, it was absolutely disgusting, sort of cesspool like.  The lake was covered with a thick layer of flies, smelled worse then rotten eggs, and there was garbage everywhere.  No way was I going to lay in a foot in that cesspit.

I blamed my misguided fantasies on Utah Tourism brochures – The lakes turquoise waters and white sand beaches are popular with swimmers and sunbathers – MY ASS!

Let’s just says it as it is – the lake is polluted as hell due to industrial runoff and when the waters are low the smell of insect decay makes you want to hurl.  All those strange looking evaporation ponds at the edge of the lake and loads of mineral extracting machinery – make the Great Salt Lake look like some creeped out version of Mars when viewed from above during landing at the SLC airport.

The Great Salt Lake has been raped, pillaged, polluted and essentially forgotten in the eyes of the average Utah and in that I have learned to love it.

The Salt Lake’s high salinity makes it uninhabitable except for a few species of brine shrimp (aka sea monkeys) and algae but the shores of the lake are a critical habitat for migratory birds.  The shores of the Salt Lake were once home to Pink Floyd, a Chilean flamingo that escaped from the Salt Lake City’s Tracy Aviary in 1990.  Pink Floyd was often seen socializing with all the other gulls and dining off brine shrimp.  Floyd appeared so content and happy at the lake they decided not to capture him.  He was last sighted somewhere in Idaho in 2005.

Anyway… I wanted to share some photos of the lake I have grown to love.  This winter while the trails of Salt Lake’s Wasatch Mountains were packed with snow and mud I took to the trails of the Great Salt Lake’s Islands where there is always plenty of sun, beauty and dry trail.

Views of the Great Salt Lake from Split Rock Trail on Antelope Island

Running the Great Salt Lake's Stansbury Island Trail

Buffalo Sightings on Antelope Island

Sunset at Stansbury Island's Lake Viewpoint

Just got back from a weekend trip to Goblin Valley in Southern Utah.  Goblin Valley is near the San Rafael Swell, a crazy geological feature located in south-central Utah.  The Swell is a huge upfolding of sandstone and shale that supposedly has similar features to Mars.

Winding Through Little Wildhorse Canyon

The greatest things about the Swell is that over the last million years or so numerous flash floods have eroded the weaker layers and carved out a ton of slot canyons and crazy looking rock formations.  The bummer part of the swell is that it is “managed” by the Bureau of Land Management meaning that the area has no wilderness protection so it is being torn up by ATVs and oil diggers.  The area was proposed to receive National Monument status but GW Bush never acted on the proposal.

Environmentalism aside, there is something about all that wide open space and bizarre-o rock formations that just makes you want to dance.

We spent the morning dancing from rock to rock and then met up with some friends from Salt Lake and explored Little Wild Horse Canyon, a popular beginner slot canyon just a few miles from the entrance to Goblin Valley State Park, while trying to conserve our energy for our go at the Goblin Valley Trail Race the next morning.  I tend to travel to beautiful places for trail races and utterly tire myself out by race morning.

Posing in the Narrow Slots of Little Wildhorse Canyon

A barely above freezing desert morning inspired me to run faster than I have ever run before simply to warm myself up.  I managed to maintain that pace until I puked up candy corn a mile before the finish.  The Halloween themed race had fully stocked bowls of candy corn at all their aid stations and I regretfully grabbed a handful at the last station.  I am not really one for setting race day goals, but I really want to finish a race smiling and I thought this might be the one…

Happy to Have Finished the Goblin Valley Race

Running Through the Spooky Formations in Goblin Valley

Dancing in the Desert

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