Grand Teton Relay

Team 'Running With Scissors' is back! Austin Kade Academy sponsored our team for the Grand Teton Relay again this summer. It's 180 miles, 12 people, and 24 hours of crazy fun! We love this race! Our van was awesome! The order of our runners was Marlee, Nate, Bailey, Jim, Me, and Brad. Mark was our awesome driver!

Once we got all checked in, the first thing these two did was tattoo themselves!

We were van 2, so while we were waiting at our first exchange zone, Mark decorated our van.

We definitely had the best looking flag girls!

Bailey's fist leg was 7.7 miles, listed as very hard.

My first leg was 6.4 miles. I was the start of the night running. I was on a road in the middle of the woods and it was pitch black. I thought for sure I was gonna get eaten by a bear or kidnapped by a crazy ax murderer. The guys in my van didn't like the idea of me out there all alone either, so they ended up driving beside me for a lot of it. It's probably a good thing I was freaked out, because I ended up running it pretty fast!

Getting ready for her night run!

Her second run was an easy 4.5 miles in the middle of the night. 

After the night running, we went and got food and tried to sleep for a couple hours. These girls were so tired! They fell asleep in the van before we even made it to the high school. Brad looked up and got freaked out when he saw this! Check out Bailey and the perfect placement of the creepy doll head!

My second run was 4.6 miles. Only the last part was hard, because I started the climb up Targhee.

The sun was coming up over the beautiful Tetons. This was the view I had for most of my second run.

A van 2 selfie (w/o Brad who was running up Targhee).

This was one of the hardest legs of the course! Brad had to run up Targhee. Since his run was SUPER hard, I'm sure he didn't appreciate the great view he had of the Tetons. I took this picture for him, so he could enjoy it after he was finished :)!

Our Van 1 runners had to run the 'Rails to Trails' legs at night. One of our team members got lost, and they had to call search and rescue to find him. That put us behind an hour or so. So, we were stuck at this exchange zone for a long time. But we found Kevin! He was a Utah cross country runner that was running for another team. We met him right before Bailey got her first handoff. Bailey started before him, and was quite a bit ahead of him. When we would drive by him, we would yell, "Run faster Kevin! You're chasing a cute girl!" He was dang fast, and he eventually passed her. His team got way ahead of ours because of our lost runner, so we didn't see him again until this point.

Hahahaha! Poor Nate!

On these kinds of relays, you try to sleep wherever you can!

Hahaha! These guys are nuts!

Running With Scissors Van 2!

We had some time to kill, so Bailey was deciding how to do her hair for her last and most challenging run. She's a dork!

This lovely hairdo is what she decided on! The headbands just made it extra attractive!

We had 24 hours to try to find the Sasquatch. We finally found him! 

Sasquatch scooped Bailey right up for a picture!

This was Bailey's final, and most challenging run. She chose to be runner 9 just for this leg of the relay. She had to run 3 miles up the Teton Pass. She was determined she was going to do this without walking. I was having anxiety about her doing it. There wasn't a shoulder to run on, and there were a lot of blind corners she had to go around. Then I got more anxiety when we drove up it and I saw how incredibly hard it was! I thought there was no way she would be able to run all of it. She's the life of the party, and a total spaz when she's not running, but when it's her turn to run, she takes it very seriously. She was mentally prepared for it, and she did AMAZING!!! Me and Marlee walked down a little ways, and we were ringing the cow bell so she would hear it and know she was getting close. 

She was almost done at this point. She ran by us and said how much she hated it! She did sooooo awesome! She didn't only run the whole way, but she ran it pretty fast!

It was perfect timing from van 1. They drove by right when Bailey was running up the pass. They stopped at the top with us and watched her finish it. She had a whole cheering section! They were pretty impressed with her.  My last run was an easy 3.5 miles, and then it was off to the finish line!

We did it! 'Running With Scissors' was awesome!

I hope we can do this together again next year!