Remember the Lost Souls Challenge over the summer? Well, Dan created another challenge for our winter months. This one was called Bad Ideas of Winter, and it was so much fun! We had 5 events we had to complete to get our finisher award at the end. They were:
1. Isengard
We had to watch a 90 minute movie while we ran on the treadmill over Christmas break. I watched Rocky IV. Mark watched Bourne.
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| 10 miles on the treadmill! |
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| Best movie ever! |
2. Bonehead
The group met on New Years day for a trek up Sunnyside Road toward Bone. We were in AZ for this event, so we had to do the 'out of area' challenge. We had to run a mile for every degree it was above freezing. We were a little worried we were gonna have to run an ultra since we were in the hottest possible place. A cold front came through AZ while we were there, so we lucked out. We got up early on New Years day and ran in the San Tan mountains. So fun! We technically only had to go 5 miles, but we went 11 instead. Great run!
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| We got lucky with the weather! |
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| Starting before the sun came up. |
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| A pretty AZ sunrise. |
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| Mark-Tricia |
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| So fun to run in the desert with all the fun cactus! |
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| Pretty! |
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| Mark |
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| Huge cactus! |
3. Yeti Spaghetti
The third event was the Yeti Spaghetti in Soda Springs. This one was tough! It was just over 5 miles, but the snow was brutal. Not super deep, just very uneven and hard to run in. It wore us out! We had an awesome group show up, and there was a great potluck afterwards. Fun event!
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| So many people for how far away it was. |
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| Hahaha, Jeremy showing us where to leave the road and head to the trail. |
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| The Yeti! |
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| The loop we did was really pretty. |
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| Check our Jennifer's sock to get a feel for how cold it was! 😂 |
4. The Long Night
The Long Night was the craziest of the events. It's a fundraiser for Coming Home Inc., a nonprofit organization that helps veterans and their families. The run starts at 8:00PM on a Sunday night. The participants run/walk/ruck/stroll for 4.166 miles every hour. The event ends 12 hours later on Monday morning when the sun rises. If you stay the whole night you end up with 50 miles. In the past years, Dan is the only one who has completed the 50 miles. This year there were 4 or 5 people! It was awesome! The goal of the event is that no one ends up out on the course alone. People come and go throughout the night. It's really awesome. This year was the biggest turn out by far. There were always several people on the course all through the night. The conditions this year were terrible! The mile path around Freeman Park was a solid sheet of ice. Dan had to make a half mile loop in the snow instead. Ugh! That's a lot of loops! I started at 8:00, and completed 35 miles. I ended around 4:00 in the morning. Mark started at 8:00, and did about 22 miles. The event raised over $2000 for Coming Home Inc. It was a great success. Maybe I'll shoot for the full 50 miles next year.
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| Amanda-Tricia-Steph Round 1 completed! |
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| The War Memorial. |
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| The fog made everything have a layer of ice on it. It looked really cool, but it made for some hard running. |
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| Mark-Jenn-Carney-Steph-Tricia-Amanda This was in the wee hours of the morning. |
5. Soup in the Snow
The final event is one of my favorites of the winter. Soup in the Snow is a run to the lower Palisades Lake in February. You do a pushup on the bridge and then head back down where a warm fire, and a yummy potluck are waiting for you. So fun! This was the biggest year by far; over 50 people ran it! So awesome! I thought with that many people on the trail, we wouldn't see any moose, but we still had 3 of them hanging out by the trail. Palisades is one of my favorite places in the winter.
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| Such an awesome turn out! |
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| Starting up the trail! |
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| The trail at the beginning wasn't too bad. Lots of snow, but still pretty runnable. It got deeper and deeper as we climbed. |
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| My favorite spot on the way up. |
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| Crossing the final bridge before the lower lake. |
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| 😍😍😍 |
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| The snow was plenty deep by this point. It was like running through a little snow tunnel. |
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| Mat took a pretty good tumble! 😂 |
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| Mark's pushup on the bridge! |
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| Tricia's pushup! |
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| The half way spot. Time to head back down. |
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| A moose across the creek. |
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| This moose came out of the water right onto the trail. Mark had his spray out, so we walked along cautiously for awhile. |
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| Warming up by the fire afterwards. |
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| This completed our Bad Ideas of Winter Challenge, so we got our finisher awards! |
Such a fun challenge to keep us motivated during the hard winter months. I loved all of it!
