Park City Trail Series 15k Race Report

On Tuesday I got back to running! 

I ran 9 miles and felt so great! What a relief! 

I was also reminded that 9 miles is my favorite distance! 

Then I saw a tweet about this 15k (which is 9.3 miles!) trail race that was happening this weekend. I immediately wanted to do it since my training plan said to do a 10k or half marathon, and I had written in "trails" so this was kind of a mixture of those. But would that be too crazy?! I waited a few days to see if anyone wanted to do it with me. My awesome friend, Shannon, also immediately wanted to do it as soon as she heard about it! So, by Friday we were all signed up, hydrating and carb loading!

Saturday morning, I met Shannon and we carpooled up to Park City, which is about a half an hour away. We really didn't know what to expect, and I guess we were a bit excited so we ended up getting there an hour early. That was ok, though, it gave us a chance to go do a little reconnaissance on the trail, hang out and take some pictures. It was pretty beautiful out there! We ended up running about a mile and a half which got us nice and warmed up.

One of the sponsors was a bowling alley so this guy was there and we had to get a picture! :)

As we lined up at the start, these hot air balloons started rising above the hills. It was really pretty, and it seemed like they were there just for us, to give us a good send off! We were able to see them for about the first half mile before the trail turned around the hill.

Lining up, just taking in this beautiful venue!

The course really was so beautiful and so fun! It was definitely challenging, with a lot of ups and downs, including one uphill stretch that lasted from about mile 4 to 5.5 or so. I did decide to stop and walk a few times on the steeper hills, but they were all short and it never felt too bad.  They also had 4 aid stations which I stopped at briefly for water. There was a volunteer there that I just knew from instagram so it was really cool to meet her in person and she was awesome to cheer me on when I saw her at the first and last aid stations.

I had told Shannon that I would probably come in at around 1:45 so she planned to come out and meet me at around that time, but by the time she headed out, I was on the home stretch! She took this picture of me, then ran with me the last little bit. I finished in 1:40 so that was pretty awesome to beat my estimated time. Shannon also beat her estimated time and came in at 1:12 and the FIRST FEMALE! I was so happy for her and proud of her, and it felt like I was walking around with a celebrity while we waited around for the awards and raffle.

Here's Shannon with the 2nd and 3rd place females. It was pretty exciting to actually have a reason to stick around for the awards ceremony. She won a pair of The North Face shoes so that was pretty awesome!

We met some cool people and hung out with them for a while. They asked Shannon if she was the fast Shannon they always see on Strava running around their neighborhood, but she wasn't so that was kind of funny! They also took this picture for us.

I ended up winning a pair of $60 sunglasses in the raffle which was awesome, and they gave away a ton of stuff so I think everyone who stuck around for the raffle got something. We all got pint glasses instead of t-shirts which I thought was pretty awesome because

Overall, it was just such a fun race with great support and fun people. We are planning on doing the whole series (5k, 10k, 15k & Half Marathon) next year! I'm so glad I have the fitness to be able to sign up for a race like this last minute, and I'm so glad I have such great friends who like to do spontaneous things like this with me!!

Mary Poppins!

Wednesday I got the chance to take Elle to see Mary Poppins at The Hale Center Theater and it was so, so good!

Mary Poppins was my favorite movie growing up, and the first movie we ever bought with our saved up pennies. My grandpa even worked on the sound for the movie! So when things started to happen in the play that didn't happen in the movie, I wasn't sure I would like it. It ended up being so amazing, though! Elle was on the edge of her seat the whole time and it was so great just to see the look on her face while she watched it. She was totally enthralled! And so was I. It was probably the best musical I've ever been to. I'm so sad we only had 2 tickets and that this run at HCT is almost over and all sold out because I want everyone to be able to see it.

The stage was amazing and made Elle open her mouth in suprize several times. Here's a few shots of it before it started.

Here's Elle at intermission with a cardboard cutout. This wasn't the acutal cast. :) She fits right in, doesn't she?

After the show, we waited in line so we could meet Mary Poppins and Bert. They did such a great job, I was so happy to shake their hands and tell them that. The guy who plays Burt even told Elle that she is beautiful.

Such a great, great show. If you ever get the chance to see this musical, you should go! The whole theme of the story was so good, it made me laugh and cry and the songs and dancing were amazing! There was a lot of femanist feel to it, but also just a lot of the feeling that no one is better than anyone else. I love that. One song that was added in had lyrics that said:

Anything can happen if you let it
If you reach for the stars
All you get are the stars
But we’ve found a whole new spin
If you reach for the heavens
You get the stars thrown in
Anything can happen if you let it
Life is out there waiting so go and get it

Mary Poppins flew by at the end and dropped millions of little paper stars so I let Elle go up to the stage and grab a handful to bring home and remember this fun night. She totally wants to be in a muscial now. She's such a little performer!

I even had a hard time sleeping after we got home because I just couldn't stop thinking about it. What a great night. I just can't praise it highly enough! :)

Hiking City Creek

Since my heel was hurting last week, I didn't run on Saturday, but went on a hike with Pete!

It was really hard, but also really nice. We went up City Creek Canyon and got some beautiful views!

Here's Pete coming up the steep hill we walked up.

We got to where we could see the whole valley!

 It was a lot of work, but totally worth it when we got there!

Pete insisted that we keep going, even after we hit the time we had decided to turn around. I'm glad we did because, with just a little farther, we were able to see the other side of the mountain! That's part of The Great Salt Lake down there. It was a beautiful morning and I loved spending it with Pete. I did end up letting the downhills take me away a little too much, and I ran on the parts that weren't too steep.

When we got home, I took the girls to ballet for their placement classes. Elle went first and we found out that she gets to move  up a level! When she was done, we picked up Ethan and George and hurried down to The Museum of Natural Curiosity at Thanksgiving Point to meet Pete's sister for a fun time there with her kids. It's a new museum and it was really cool! Pete and Mindy joined us later after Mindy finished her placement class, and she moved up a level too! Pretty exciting!

I didn't take many pictures because I was busy chasing George around, but there was a lot of fun stuff for kids to do including a little down, a water works room, and a big rope/slide/climbing playground. Here's one of our favorite exhibits. You could move the sand around to make different mountains and valleys and it would project a topography map onto it. It was pretty cool.

By the time we left, which was close to 8pm, my legs were feeling really sore and I was happy to just go home and go to bed! That hike ended up being a really good long run replacement! It had only been 6 miles, but with a total of about 1700 feet of elevation gain! Yikes! It took us 3 hours. Pete was a little bit annoyed because it was supposed to be a starter hike! Haha. Starter hike, shmarter hike!

My Budding Ballerina

I just can't even express how proud and amazed I am of Mindy. She has been working hard this summer, as usual. Last Friday she had her class showing/end of summer performance. I felt like such a bad mom because, even though I had been talking to the kids about going that morning, I forgot about her showing! We got there probably 20 minutes late, and Mindy did not have a happy look on her face when I finally snuck into the studio. Luckily I was still able to see 2 of her dances, and I got to be around for all the fun pictures and celebrations when it was over.

Here she is leading the Kingdom of The Shades dance.

Taking pictures with her friends.

Here they are just being crazy and jumping for the picture.

Time to be serious again.

She has had one week off and goes back on Monday for a workshop with a teacher who came from Russia!