Moab!

Ok, so these pics aren't complete, but it's been a week, so I oughta at least put something up. We headed to Moab last thursday for a getaway and the Canyonlands Half Marathon. We arrived in Moab about 8:00pm and started looking for a campsite. Well, after 3 hours and seriously looking through 150+ campsites, we finally found something at 11:30 that night. Yuck. That wasn't so much fun. We were really worried what we were gonna do. We got down there thursday thinking we'd avoid the rush from the racers and all would be well. Well, it would've been had there not been spring break bikers/jeepers that had probably been there since early in the week. Anyway, loved where we ended up at Ken's Lake. It's a small man made lake within walking distance of the campground that was ventured down to to wade and dig in the sand. Stay tuned for the sand castle/fortress picture we took.

Oh funny kid moment. We only opened the tent trailer we brought down (thanks Wade! Jer's dad) just a little thursday to load it, and Mckayla was not too impressed with the size. Well they were all asleep when we finally got set up that night and in the morning I woke just before Mckayla and her little eyes lit up "Mom! It's so much bigger in here than I imagined!" Cute girl. They had a blast in there. We are tent campers no problem, but it sure was nice to have the extra room to move and the warmth.

Anyway, Friday we did some hiking around the campground and went into town to pick up my race packet.
Race Day went great! My conservative goal was 1:45, optimistic 1:40. I had everything prepared and rode the bus up with my good friend Heidi. It was funny to look up in the rocks on he hillside and see people everywhere. We got going, parted ways after a minute or two and off I went. I felt really good and wasn't sure about holding the pace the whole race, but I did. I ran with a really nice guy from the running club I'm with that was a great pacer for several miles. The last 2 miles I was feeling it pretty good, but hung on to finish in 1:39. 2 minutes off my PR, but for this hilly course I was really pleased with it.

I owe so much to Jer. He got up at 7am to drop Heidi and I off at the start, but that's the least of what he does. He packs the car and gets most of everything ready and sets most everything up once we get there. He deals with nerves and anxiousness from me before the race (I am pretty good about it after all these years though), and then wrangles all 3 kids for hours while I'm racing. And for instance, not just the hour and a half I raced yesterday, he has them for hours before the race even starts as I have to get to the busses and get to the start or set up equiptment in the transition area for triathlons. Then he often has to hang around at the finish while I recover and wait for a massage. He's so great, I love you honey! Thanks for making this all possible. Seriously, I do the training, but he watches kids when I have to train long, he makes the money so we can travel to race, he takes care of everything while we're there. I have the easy job come race day :) After the race we did some hiking at our campground. This was our view from our camp site. We hiked the Faux Falls there. Some man made falls, but still very pretty. Mckayla is SUCH a hiker and climber. She got up here all by herself, I just followed her for supervision.

Sweet Talmy, he wants to climb like Kayla but we don't quite trust him to do so yet. So after we all got to the top of the falls and Mckayla and I hiked higher, he hung out with Dad and Kaitlyn. What a handsome man he is, my sweet blonde haired surfer boy.

He did get to do a little climbing of his own though. Good thing it was in front of Daddy, I probably would've freaked out.

And our captive little Kait

The view from the top

This was funny. Mckayla is so fearless. She wanted to get off the ledge I'm standing on to see the water below. Well we told her to wait for Jer but she said she'd be fine. What'd she do? Fall flat on her bum. Was kind of a sickening sound and sight and she was a bit upset, but she was totally fine as is evident by her pose in this pic taken less than a minute after her fall. :)

Kaitlyn is back there in the backpack, I promise, she's not the one taking the picture.

Sunday afternoon became really windy and we were in a pretty wide open high plain, so we decided to pack up for our last night. Didn't take too long, and we drove a couple miles out of Moab and onto Hwy 279 which is a scenic byway through high windy rock faces on each side, it was really neat. Our campsite was right up next to a cliff that allowed good climbing by the kids, it's amazing how fast they can climb!

Loved the high rock walls, and the kids found Indian writing right in our campground. It's real too, we saw it in several other places along the highway.

And oh my Mckayla. She wanted to tell stories at the campfire. It was Jer's turn and she stopped him quickly when she knew it was a story about his past, "it has to be made up Dad!". I started to tell one and she reminded me that it "needs to have some danger in it to be good". I love her cute little crossed hands and legs.

Apparently Talm was a bit bored by our stories as we found him "sleeping" on a nice soft rock.

Monday we hiked to Corona Arch and the kids and Dad went on a drive while I rode 20 miles on a scenic byway down there, very nice. Pics to come.
We had a great time! Great race and weather and it was just so nice to getaway from everyday life. Can't wait to do it again soon!

Oh and on the way home, guess what else I did? Signed up for Ironman St George 2010!!!