Grandpa’s Race

I posted awhile back about Seth’s Grandpa Wallace who passed away in October.  He was a huge supporter of the Ogden Trails Network, donating massive amounts of time to building, engineering, and repairing trails.  If you have ever spent any time on the trails in O-town, you know they are some of the best in the world for their beauty, quality, and just overall awesomeness!  Anyway- the Ogden Trails Network, along with the Northern Utah Trail Series wanted to start an annual run in his honor, with the proceeds going towards beautification of the many, many trails that Grandpa helped implement over the years.  When we heard about the race, we knew we had to run it!  Then we heard that it was a 10k trail run on a fairly difficult (mostly UPHILL) course in early April in Utah.  (translation- the weather is most likely NOT going to cooperate!)   Still, we knew we had to represent! So, Seth & I made an effort to get in some kind of decent running shape, we marked our calendars, and we did our best to rally the fam & a few brave friends to come & run with us.

The morning of the race we woke up to about 5 inches of fresh Utah powder.  Yes, this is on April 9th- not the strangest thing, but certainly not the spring April morning we were hoping for! Oooh- I was so tempted to stay in my bed, but after dressing in about 5 too many layers, we headed down to the race.

This is my friend Brooke and I walking from the car to the race start. Yes, as you can see, i was wearing my ski goggles, and my big wooly ski socks because I was so afraid of the cold (and the wet).

However, a miraculous thing happened.  The minute we started running, the snow stopped. And I even want to say the sun nearly peaked through, but that may have been my hallucinations from running straight up Taylor’s canyon. Anyway- it turned out to be a delightful run.  Just delightful! I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Lots of brave Wallace’s showed up and we had such a good time. If you have never participated in a N.U.T.S. run, you have got to put it on your list of things to do.  They do a great job organizing, the shirts are much better than average, and the trails are so much fun! You can see their schedule at www.northernutahtrailseries.com 

(I bet they think I’m so nice for that little plug :)

My brother Marty finishing.  He finished first out of all the people I knew that were there.  (That’s all that counts :)

Seth came in just a few minutes after him, that sucker.  He never even trains!  He’s just good at stuff.  It really makes the rest of us angry.

And there’s me.  I’m going to say not too shabby.  I finished much faster than I thought I would.  It only took me 1 hr. 17 minutes to complete 6 1/2 miles going straight UPHILL in the SNOW!  I think that’s pretty darn good.

Anyway- a great time was had by all.  I’m so glad I participated & so thankful to all the Wallace’s young and old who made it out.  We had a common goal and that was to in some way thank Grandpa for all the work he did on those trails.  We love you Grandpa!  Thank you for making the snow stop, even if it was just for one hour!

WALLACES!  Kim, Brian, Wendy, Wendy’s mom?, Amber, Travis, Jim, Dianna, Travis & Dianna’s girls, Me, Seth and Bob. Oh, and don’t forget my brother Marty.  Not technically a Wallace, but everyone wanted him to be in the photo anyway, since he supported us! (and he’s almost related!)

P.S.- These photos were all stolen from the N.U.T.S. website.  Yet another reason you should run one of their races.  They take your picture, and they don’t make you pay $40.00 for a copy!

P.S.S.- In case you were curious, I didn’t end up needing my goggles.  (And Seth thought I was the biggest nerd ever.)  But I’d rather be safe than sorry!