Last fall, our weekly running group, the Run Around Club (R.A.C.), hit its double digits. The task of keeping this group going, literally and metaphorically, has largely fallen to Jason and me for most of its years. Given that and the 1,800-2,000 miles the organization has spanned, a decade seemed something worth celebrating… I think you can sense where this is going.
I have so many memories of smacking asphalt with these folks.
The formation of the R.A.C. back in September of 2011 resulted from a conversation we had with friends and family members at a party about sustaining exercise motivation. The company concluded that weekly runs together might provide enough positive peer pressure and enjoyment for healthy habits to be developed and kept. After that discussion, the R.A.C. came into being with the idea that we’d take turns organizing these weekly runs to spread the responsibility amongst us. However, over time, most in our group became less eager to take on their share of the coordinating. The ball others dropped, I picked up and continued playing with though. At one point, I realized Jason and I were the only ones keeping the R.A.C. operational, and my frustration almost led me to throw in the sweaty towel. Instead, after some internal debate, I consciously accepted the duty and took full ownership of the R.A.C. along with Jason.
The kids exhibited a wide range of race enthusiasm from comatose to pee your pants.
Why was I willing to do that? The makeup of the R.A.C. has shifted over its decade, but the essence of it has remained. The encouragement, the comradery, the giggles, the thoughtful and ridiculous conversations, and the friendships and confidence built over many miles have all endured. Whether it be laps at the rec center during winter’s dreariest months or our annual dash up the mountain to Stewart Falls, the R.A.C. connects, inspires, and strengthens. Over the last ten years, I’ve seen multiple members go from their couches to running their first half marathons and believing in their capabilities. That’s why I decided it was worth utilizing some of my planning mojo to insure the R.A.C. lived on.
And the winners are…
As with the regular undertakings of the R.A.C., arranging its anniversary celebration fell to Jason and me. (Okay, mostly me.) With the help of an illustrator, I created custom t-shirts for attendees made of fabric soft enough for my picky standards. We rented a pavilion at one of our regular running spots and ordered catering from Café Rio. After dinner, we held a one-mile kids race with prizes for first place in both pre-adolescent and teenage categories. I also made a 10-minute video of the R.A.C. throughout its years using pictures and clips taken on our hundreds of runs. Aah… is anything sweeter than a sweaty memory lane?
I’m grateful for my running buddies, the beautiful trails we’ve traversed, the habits we’ve fostered, the conversations we’ve had, and the muscles we’ve earned. May the pavement be ever at your feet and your friends ever alongside you.
Running can’t replace sleep. It’s not an equivalent exchange. Jason and I tested that law again last fall on the Bonneville Salt Flats while partaking in the Dusk to Dawn Relay. Yup, they still can’t be swapped. How was our second experience the same and different from our first Salt Flats all-nighter?
Cots, full coolers, lounge chairs, and snacks galore- what a luxurious encampment!
Jason and I were more ambitious with our team size this time. Signing up for a six-person team rather than an eight-person meant a greater commitment to laps. Others seemed less committed though, and we didn’t have a full crew for our Na Squad until six weeks before the race. We eventually attracted an incongruous but genial assortment of teammates ranging from teenagers to senior citizens and from ramblers to sprinting veterans. Other crews may have come upon their participants easier for the number of total runners appeared to have doubled from the race’s inaugural year.
The Bonneville Salt Flats are 12 miles long and five miles wide.Unnecessary jumping is the perfect way to waste energy before pulling an all-nighter.
The race loop was exactly two miles long this time. Between 8:04 p.m. and 7:06 a.m., the duration of the event, Jason and I both ran six laps. The total miles of our associates varied from eight to fourteen. One of our teenage teammates simultaneously “pulled a muscle” and “got a blister” in the middle of the night making him unable to circle further. Yeah, basically he didn’t want to run anymore. I was certainly not our fastest runner, but I was unfailingly consistent with no “pulled muscles.” I completed all but one of my laps between 19 and 21 minutes.
Thanks Stacey Marble for the cool silhouette shot.
Our team again broke up responsibility for chunks of the night to pairs, so sleep was still technically feasible, at least on a small-scale. For the second time, Jason and I took the slot no one wanted, which was the two-hour block between 3:00 and 5:00 a.m. All our teammates snoozed during these hours. We didn’t mind the quiet until we tried to wake up a replacement at the end of our window. No one was particularly interested, and it took a lot of effort to get our next looper in place.
As its name suggests, Dusk to Dawn starts promptly at sunset.
How did our team do? We placed 3rd amongst the six-person teams, but there were only four of those. Out of the 15 total teams in all three divisions, we came in 7th. Robust averageness? That’s what we are all about baby! We finished five laps behind our division winners. During our first attempt of this relay, our eight-person team completed 59.85 miles. We were hoping to beat that number in 2021. With 64 miles, we did it!
Speeds varied considerably amongst out teammates, but we always had someone at the start line ready to continue our forward momentum.
How was the setting? Besides the company with you, the spaces above you are the best thing about this race. Again, we saw Saturn and Jupiter and a million glimmering jabs. The moon was an enflamed sliver that appeared just an hour or so before sunrise. The sunrise itself was a bit disappointing, far from the vibrant, multicolored marvel we witness on our first Dusk to Dawn. Perhaps this was the doing of the pervasive wildfire smoke, or perhaps we just lucked out last time with a rise above standard.
That’s a smile of success or at least of completion. Thanks Stacey Marble.
Just how flat were the Bonneville Salt Flats? The salt was more compact this time, less like a Slurpee and more like packed dirt. That meant the difference between salt making its way inexplicably into every cranny and it remaining mostly where it should. It was colder on this occasion. At two points in the night, I got so chilled my body decided it was quitting the warmth game. Thanks to blankets, three jackets, and intermittent running I survived anyway.
No sleep and all salt makes Jack a brisk boy.
There is something magical about running by yourself on a curious bleached plain with only the crunch of your tennis shoes against the salt to interrupt your contemplation of the innumerable flickering stars webbing the blackness above you. That stillness is only heightened by its contrast to the lively sounds surrounding the start line. Not everyone in our group immediately praised the enchanting perks of this relay though. One of the teenagers complained that we had misrepresented this race to him. Apparently, he didn’t think it would involve so much running. Hmm… what else might be the primary focus of an 11-hour race? Jason and I expected a lot of laughs, a lot of salt, a lot of steps, and not a whole lot of sleep. Our expectations became reality; that was an equivalent exchange.
The 2021-2022 snowboarding season has begun rather fantastically. As our booted feet return to the slopes, let us remember the mountains of 12 months ago. That was a season of paradoxes, overall underwhelming but with some of my favorite snow days of all time. The precipitation came later than ever yet Jason and I boarded more days together than we ever have in a season. Journey back in time with me and up the canyons to the winter of 2020-2021.
Friday Feb 5th at Solitude
You may be wondering why we didn’t go boarding until February. The answer is simple: the snow sucked. Accumulation didn’t pass 60 inches until then. COVID-caused closures late in the 2019-2020 season meant we hadn’t boarded in nearly a year, so we decided 60 inches was going to have to do. We went up on a day 6-10 inches were forecasted to fall over operational hours, and the wind was forecasted to gust over 30 MPH… both of those predictions seemed accurate. Free refills were supplied all afternoon, at least I’m pretty sure they were. We couldn’t see more than a couple feet ahead on the upper half of the mountain. Luckily, since the wind seemed focused on the tops of the slopes, we only got pelted ceaselessly in the face not utterly frozen. The plus to the gusts? Despite the plentiful precipitation, the resort was uncrowded leaving us to enjoy Grumble, Rumble, and Stumble unconstrained.
At the top of Eagle, we felt every mile of 30 MPH.
Friday Feb 12th and Saturday Feb 13th at Snowbird
See my post covering these two days to uncover the details of my favorite day of snowboarding ever.
Tuesday Feb 16th at Brighton
Yes, we were back on the slopes only a few days after our Snowbird adventure. The snow kept dropping, so we couldn’t resist. Brighton got 14 inches overnight, but avalanche danger was extremely high. Therefore, Big Cottonwood Canyon was closed until noon for avalanche control. We started heading up the canyon just half an hour later. It took an hour and 50 minutes to get to the resort. Why? I have no idea. We had just two hours to board by the time we reached Brighton, and we made use of every second. The snow was enticing and the resort fairly empty. My favorite powder field had few tracks in it. The conditions weren’t as unbelievable as Mineral Basin a few days earlier, but it would be ungrateful to expect two such days in a lifetime let alone in the same week.
Fourteen inches looks awfully good on me.
Wednesday March 3rd at Solitude
Spring weather in the low 40s prompted us to spend a couple hours at Solitude. The snow wasn’t as slushy as we thought it would be, but it wasn’t a solid sheet of ice either. Unfortunately, I fell directly on my thumb during our first trip down the mountain and detached one side of my nail (a real nail). The only way to keep it from bleeding everywhere was to stick it back in my glove and let the glove take the abuse. As I prefer my gear not to be bloodstained, it wasn’t ideal. I now always carry some Band-Aids and Kleenexes with me when snowboarding. Sorry my mittens!
I fell. My fingernail and finger departed ways. It hurt. It bled excessively.Without people, Moonbeam is a fleeting delight.
Monday March 8th at Brighton
Temperatures were in the mid-40s, so we went up for the afternoon despite the 20+ MPH wind. The wind didn’t end up being much of an issue except when it literally blew me over as we were coming down Pioneer. The snow, while decent in most spots, was hard as a rock in places. I wrecked on it once, and its inflexibility bounced me from my knees to my head. Since there was no traffic in the canyon and hardly any people at the resort, it was an acceptable day. We squeezed in 2.5 hours of boarding before the lifts closed.
Sunday March 14th at Solitude
We took a nephew with us as his birthday present. We put him in ski school for three hours and then rode Moonbeam with him the rest of the afternoon. Ski school started at 10:00, and we didn’t stop boarding until a few minutes before 4:00; it was a full day with fickle weather that fluctuated from cold and cloudy to sunny and cozy. The nine inches of powder which had fallen the last 48 hours were mostly gone, but we still found some at our favorite spots on Eagle. Our nephew soundly improved from his lesson, but he still couldn’t figure out how to heel carve or control his speed. I’m glad I don’t have to go back to the many ungainly stages of boarding.
Being a cool aunt or uncle isn’t that hard. You just have to take your niece or nephew to a ski resort, buy them all the gear they forgot to bring, put them in ski school, stuff them with waffles, and then give them lots of encouragement as they fall speedily.
Friday March 19th at Brighton
The temperatures reached 48 degrees, which made for a cheery and slushy experience. Everyone else wanted some of that sun action apparently, and the resort was quite full. The lift lines were disorganized and there was a lot of cutting, which made me a bit irritated. Although we didn’t start boarding until 2:45, we rode for a little over two hours thanks to passes that let us dip into night riding. For the record, it was perfectly light for this “night” riding.
Many Utahns miss all of this.
Friday April 2nd at Solitude
We started boarding right before 2:45 again. However, there were no lift lines, so we squished quite a few runs in before 4:00. This was a quintessential spring boarding day. Jackets weren’t necessary. The snow was soft. The people were absent. We found another fun run called Last Run, which did end up being our last run of the day.
Friday April 9th at Solitude
We got in exactly one hour of boarding before the lifts closed. It was definitely our shortest day ever. I had received my second COVID-19 shot two days earlier and was just happy to feel good enough for an hour of boarding since I was still experiencing intermittent sweating, dizziness, and general weakness. Snowboarding seemed to help my body get over its melodrama. The resort was even less crowded than the week before though it wasn’t quite as warm, and the snow was starting to get a little crystallized.
Friday April 16th at Brighton
It was the closing weekend for Solitude and Brighton. A storm brought 18 inches of powder to Brighton and a heap of people. The lift line at Snake Creek was ridiculously long, but the runs were oddly empty. Temperatures were in the high twenties and low thirties with no wind, a.k.a. pretty pleasant. Getting a dose of powder that late in the season was a treat.
In a related opinion, I was not impressed with Brighton’s lift operators last year. Even with social distancing causing extra line chaos, some of them just sat around talking instead of directing people. Not surprisingly, line jumping and even more confusion ensued. Not all lifties did this of course, but I left Brighton aggravated a lot more than I should have considering its enduring status as my favorite resort.
Sunday April 18th at Solitude
This was supposed to be Solitude’s last day, but at the last minute they decided to add four “secret” days to their season. Everything about it was a celebration. Temperatures were in the 50s, and the parking lot was packed with cars and people having barbecues and dance parties. This left the runs to those who prefer to board in the mountains and dance in their basements. We tried a few new routes off Apex, specifically Wallstreet, Abba’s Alley, and Blue Spruce, along with revisiting some of our old favorites on Moonbeam. Wallstreet was our preferred of these. I have to say, Moonbeam is ideal for ease of access when the resort isn’t jam-packed and can be a lot of fun.
Friday April 23rd at Solitude
Secret days are super! The snow was a fast slush with patches of dirt peeking through here and there. We spent most of our time on Apex and an hour and a half whizzed by faster than we imagined our boards did.
Sunny, slushy days are amongst my favorites.
Saturday April 24th at Solitude
The last of the secrets! We explored Alta Bird, North Star, and Fleet Street. The snow was so soft in some places it wouldn’t hold a carve. Instead of resisting, it would just slide down the mountain and take you with it. It started snowing during the last half hour as the slush beneath our feet remained sloppy. Bizarre! Still, you’ll hear no complaints from me about an extra day!
By standard criteria for boarding seasons, 2020-2021 was a bit of a flop, but we experienced knee-deep, untracked powder amidst the general disappointment. How could a season so tardy and indifferent contain moments so exquisite? Whatever the reason for this dichotomy, one should never look a gift flake in the germ.
On a side note, we did improve our experience last season through implementing some hard-earned wisdom from previous years. We avoided traffic in the canyon by mostly going later in the day, and we avoided most weekends in favor of Fridays. These changes made for significantly less time wasted in our car and a lot less parking-related anxiety.
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