Zion Traverse!

So as most people know, I trained all summer long to run the st. george marathon. I trained my butt off and the only thing I accomplished was hurting myself. Well, I didn't do the marathon. The longest run Ive ever completed is 20 miles... until yesterday. It all started last year about this time when my dad and I started running some cool, long trails. We love zion and we love running, so we made a goal to do what is called the Zion Traverse trail. We hoped to maybe do it in the early winter of 2018. Well this year went by and we kind of talked about it, but then injury after injury popped up and we realized our plan wasn't going to happen. All it takes is a few idiots with a crazy idea and it happened. My dad told me about a week or two ago that him and troy wanted to run Zion Traverse the friday or saturday after thanksgiving. It didn't take me anytime at all to say that I was in. We watched the weather, planned our drops, packed our bags, got our driver and it was a go. Saturday morning shawnee picked us up at 5am and we headed up I-15 to the kolob canyon exit. We had to run an extra 4 miles uphill because of construction, but that didn't stop us (slowed us down though). Kolob canyon and Lee Pass were both super fun trails and a good way to start off the day. We then took a turn onto the Hop Valley trail... Im not going to say it wasn't fun, but lets just say it was toughest 7 miles of the whole trail. It was uphill most the time and it was all in sand. Deep sand. We were, however, rewarded with our first drop at mile 17 after all the grueling sand-filled miles. We enjoyed some resting, downed some goodies and drinks, called the families and reassured our safety and then we were off. Personally, the next ten miles (connector trail and wildcat canyon trails) were the hardest for me. I didn't do great at replenishing calories the first 17 miles so around mile 21 to 26 I felt dead. My legs just ached and I felt like they were going to fall off. I was wondering how in the world I was going to finish this hike. We weren't even half way and I was exhausted. Well I pushed through those miles and at mile 27 we had our lunch at the top of the west rim trail. It felt so dang good to sit down. For lunch I packed a PBH, bbq chips and fruit snacks. I had been thinking about the barbecue chips for the past 6 miles and that is seriously one of the things that kept me going. BBQ lays have never tasted so amazing as they did in that moment. We relaxed for a good time. I brought a pair of extra socks, but I didn't dare take off my shoes because I knew I wouldn't want to put them back on. After a little bit, we headed out on the West Rim trail aka the best running trail zion has. Ya know how I was struggling through miles 21-26, well West Rim was nothing but awesome. I felt so good for being mile 30 and for our circumstances, we flew down west rim. We took a few stops at the beautiful view points, but overall we flew. The most painful part of the trail however was the last part of West Rim... angels landing. Our quads were already dead, then we had the dreaded switch backs of angels landing. But it was all ok, because mom and jack were there!! They had hiked up and met us on the trail. They loaded us up with food - hotcheetos, chocolate, cookies etc. We hung out for a little bit with them, but then we knew we had to get started up observation trail for the last 11 miles of our adventure. It was about 6pm when we started our ascent. Pitch black we had our headlamps and we cruised up the switchbacks. It still blows my mind to think how good my legs felt the whole trek. Anyways, east rim has a portion where there really isn't a trail, just cairns. We knew this part would be hard in the dark and we didn't want to accidentally go the wrong way so we were thorough in our cairn searching and we found our way. It was actually really fun. I felt like we were playing a game of hide'n go seek or I spy or something. With our lights we would look around, yell CAIRN if we found one and if we were lead to a trail with two directions we would have one person go one way and the other go the other way until we found another cairn or footprints. This is yet another zion experience that is not the smartest (angels in the snow, observation in ice, now east rim in the dark). We could've easily gotten lost, but we didn't! hallelujah. Once we found the trail, we hiked over the treacherous boulders in the dark - no big deal, just a die cliff to our right - but we lived to tell the story. It got pretty windy once the sun went down which made it seem even more sketch - we like a challenge anyways. Once we got to a flat, even, runnable trail we started jogging again. The miles went by quick as we ran through the trees with the light of the moon. With approximately 3 maybe 4 miles left, both mine and dad's toes were done. Our toenails were falling off and our blisters were popping and it was painful, but I wanted to be done. I ran looking like a crazy woman... limping with my right foot landing sideways so my toe wouldn't hurt, but I ran. We pushed through the last bit of the hike and with every turn awaiting the view of the parking lot. Not gonna lie, the last few miles were painful and slow. The whole run went by so fast, except the last couple miles. I guess thats not too bad though. We popped up over this hill and we had finally made it. We found our car and I was so ready to be home. The best part about this stop was knowing I didn't have any miles left woohoo!! best feeling. 52.8 miles. What a day!! Once we got in the car, troy took off and didn't stop till we were home. As I was sitting in the car, my legs were just aching so bad I had to keep moving them around, its almost like they had been moving for so long they didn't even know what resting was haha. We got home and chowed down on some take out from Peppers - thank you mom, you are a life saver - and filled our calorie-depleted, exhausted bodies. We told the fam our stories of the adventure, showered, popped a muscle relaxer and I peaced out for the night. I turned over in the middle of the night and the soreness of my shoulders woke me up enough for me to notice how sore I was... when I got out of bed this morning there was not a single part of my body that wasn't sore. I did hobble around church like an idiot, but I would say its worth it. We did it! We had a goal, a hard goal, and we accomplished it. Im still blown away that I haven't even ran a marathon, yet my body let me do this insane amount of mileage. We can definitely do hard things. All of us had moments of pain, doubt and lack of motivation, but ya gotta know to just keep pressing on. 

Kolob Canyon

Hop Valley

fuel of champs

left: before the marathon mark.  right: after the marathon mark

Im officially an ultra-marathoner

Wasnt feeling the best here, but still gotta throw up that thumbs up.

One of my favorite views ever

Finishing west rim with a sunset in the canyon

Flash pic of us fueling up on east rim. Good times were had, memories made, and plenty of sore muscles. Im ready to do it again. Thanks Troy and Dad for taking me on some crazy adventures. Loved every minute. #ZionTraverse ✓