One of my favorite races is HTC, and this year was no different. My team was made up of family and friends and we had the perfect balance. I convinced Caleb to run this year and he wasn't quite sure what to expect. This is a picture of the people in my van. Curtis & Jennie Hemmert from New York. Love them. Curt was my BFF my entire life and it was great to catch up with him and his wife. Dwight (Curt's bro) and Heather Hemmert also ran. And then Caleb and I and our driver Heidi (sister of Dwight & Curt).
We were the van made up of happily married couples. We started the race loving each other and ended the race by relying on each other heavily. Jennie & Curt were adorable and ran their last legs together, so they both finished with a half marathon! Dwight finished the very last leg of the whole race with Curtis. We swapped legs around so that everyone had fun. Heidi drove the whole time without complaint or losing her cool. Traffic was insane and she could not be sweeter even at 4 am. I ran 20.6 miles in total and loved every mile of it. I really liked all the legs even though I was worried they were too hard. I think Cascade Lakes Relay got me ready, because I kept my pace the whole time. I've slowed in my old age and ran a consistent 8:30 pace. Wish I could push myself back down to 7's but the legs were too hard and I didn't want to die. I just wanted to try and run faster than Dwight so I could hassle him. Caleb killed it and ran 8's the whole time. Sandbagger! He swore he couldn't run any faster than a 9. Liar! Caleb kept telling me he had not trained and may not finish. The day of the race he shaves his head, shaves a mustache, and has a whole outfit to run in. He was just trying to scare me. He was hilarious!
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| The boys, getting to know each other |
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| Caleb and his awesomeness |
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| Cutest couple on the race! |
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| inappropriate brothers |
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| Caleb carried Jennie to the beach since she lost a toe nail |
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| My sis, Heather & me |
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| Best hand off ever. Slappin' his butt baby! |
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| Our driver Heidi eating blackberries along the way |
In Van 2 we had my lovely sister Rhoda. Wish she was in my van with me. I'll have to do it again so that we can have a girls van or something. It was her first year, she had very hard legs too, and she rocked them all. She's a much stronger runner than she realizes. Her friends ran in her van with her and one came from Utah. We had a father and daughter run from California too. So awesome we represented 4 states! And how adorable is it that a father and daughter ran together? Come on! I hope my kids do stuff like that when they get older. Very inspiring to see a 16 year old girl out there running in thunder, lightning, hail, and down the side of Timberline Road. Now that's hard core. Go Danielle and James Sloan, thanks for showing us how it's done.
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| Danielle starting the race! |
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| Van 2, starting at 4:45 am |
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