Thursday, August 9, 2012

Bryce Canyon July 12-July 14th

In the beginning of the year, I wanted to do a half marathon.  I try to do new ones and I thought it would be a good excuse to go to Bryce Canyon Half since we have never been there and we could hike before.  Time flew by and I realized that I had only trained about 8 days total.  The max amount of miles I did was 6 miles but for the most part I only ran 3.  So the Thursday before, I ran 10 miles on the treadmill, hoping that would help something.  (I REALLY didn't realize how much harder it is to run with a baby, plus, I am nursing and I didn't want to train too hard to deplete my milk.)Anyway...we left for Bryce Canyon on Thurs night, July 12th and we had a party in the van!  Zealynn had a blast and we had some pretty funny memories that night!

 Friday morning we got up and went hiking to the famous "Queens Trail" which was about 5 miles.  It was BEAUTIFUL and a perfect hike.  We were nervous the weather would be way too hot for Z and were nervous she would get sunburned or dehydrated.   Our prayers were answered when it was overcast and actually rained earlier that morning.  Every time the sun started coming out, we were on the shaded part of the hike.  As you can see through all these pictures, Zealynn LOVES everything about the outdoors.  She'll happily skip her naps if she's outdoors or will take a quick power nap but never make a fuss when she goes down.
These were all over on one part, it was so cool! People make these to replicate Bryce Canyon.  There were some really tiny ones in the trees and then bigger ones too.  





After the hike, we went back to our camp site (we stayed in a tipi at Ruby's Inn!) and took Zealynn swimming at the pool there.  Later that day we went to the Mossy Caves.  It was beautiful and we love seeing the water and waterfall.


Love this man



 Saturday, July 14th was my race!  I woke up at 4:30am to feed Z and then left for the 6am race!  When the race started, it was cooler and the first 3 miles were actually in the rain/wind.  The rest of it was very cool!  In the beginning I told myself that I just wanted to finish instead of doing a time because I really didn't train so I was hoping to get better then my "not trained" time of 2:15.  Well...I was doing soo good, a lot better then I thought I would.  There was a pacer and I saw the 1:50 guy just in front of me!  I couldn't believe it!  Well, by the time the 8th mile came around, I saw the 2 hr guy right behind me! I kept thinking "I can't be ahead of him most of the time and then the last bit fall behind."  So yea...he was my motivation and I did it!  1 hr. 59 minutes and 9 seconds!  I couldn't believe it!  The only poopy part...there was no service at the end of the race! No one had it!  So it took me and Kev an hr to find each other and it was raining REALLY hard, so I was a wet dog and was bummed he didn't see me cross but I was so grateful he supports me in all of these!




 The morning of in the car...

 This was after the race...when we were back at the campground in front of our tipi!
SO cold!

 Oh my sweet heart.
 Into the tipi


 After the race I was so cold so me and Z bundled up.
I haven't seen my friend Kaylee in 6 years!  She's from there but lives in AZ and it turns out that she was doing her first race!  She is such an inspiration!  So happy we were able to meet up!!
 Family pic of Z's first camping trip!

3 comments:

Heidi said...

Glad you made it to Bryce, we just got home from Zion too@

Sundbergs said...

Awesome job on your race the tipee looks so cool! What fun fmaily memories

Betsy said...

Jess you are incredibly fast! It looks like you had a lot of fun! Bryce Canyon is so beautiful!