MOABREALITY

It's hard to believe I was hot and sweaty and got a little bit of sun last weekend...considering we had about a foot of snow (no joke) in Denver today, but I digress. [all the photos]

Nicky and I headed to Moab to run the Canyonlands Half Marathon last weekend. I was, admittedly, under trained. Our journey started out well with a quick and easy trip across Colorado (left Denver about 8:45, rolled into Palisade, Colorado at noon). Palisade is deep in the heart of Colorado Wine Country, so we indulged in a few winery stops, including Carlson Vineyards, known for its fruit wines. Now, some of my wine snob friends may shun this type of wine, but I absolutely love tasting and purchasing these local wines because you just can't get them in stores. We brought back a special surprise for the wine club gals too. It was really fun to explore this area of Colorado and I'll definitely be back...we even went to a Meadery. Turns out, I like Mead. And it smells good.

We continued our journey across the border to Moab, Utah. Once we got there, we picked up our race stuff and headed to the hotel. We stayed at the Moab Valley Inn, which was the cheapest we could find for the weekend...cheaper than Motel 6, but it was actually quite nice. It had a hot tub that came in very handy both pre- post-race. We went to a pasta dinner that was at our hotel, a benefit for the Youth Garden Project. They needed my organizational skills when it came to cooking Pasta...but all and all it was a delicious dinner. We cracked open a bottle of our Colorado wine to calm the nerves and were sereneded to sleep by the classic movie, Serendipity.

Race Day
We had to be at the race staging area by 8:15 am in order to be bussed to the start. We ran a point-to-point course through a canyon along the Colorado River, so we had to hop on school busses. Once at the top, we had to wait about TWO HOURS for the race to start. This was, most definitely, not really fun. It was pretty chilly, the lines for the port-o-potties were LONG and it generally did not put you in the mood to run 13.1 miles. We made it through, though and started the race...

We were more annoyed than we looked here...as we were about to give up our warmest layer.

The view from the start...the road is there on the left.

Honestly, the race course was beautiful, albeit quiet. The first few miles were rolling downhills, the water stops were equipped with plenty of water/gatorade, and I was feeling good. We passed the time playing the alphabet game (thanks, jess!) and just trying to enjoy the experience. Obviously things got tougher and tougher, and by mile 10 my legs had decided that they were going to go ahead and just give up. Well, we still had 3.1 miles to go so I had to keep on trucking. That's what I get for under training, but hey...If you ask Nicky, she'll tell you I held her back...but she's a loser and we are no longer friends.

Needless to say, I was miserable the last few miles...we were running into Moab along a construction-zone highway, and it was just lame. We finished though, so GO US! Five years ago I didn't even think I could run a 5k, let alone a half marathon, so the fact that I can trudge through makes me pretty proud.

Post-race, we showered and headed out to do some shopping. Found some great little pieces of jewelry and headed for an early dinner of a mexican feast. My new post-race rehydration plan is 1 GRANDE sized diet pepsi, 1 GRANDE sized Margarita and 1 GRANDE sized water. We had fancy Moab queso fundido and fajitas...seriously, I think it might go down as one of the greatest meals of my life.


We continued the night with a visit to the MOABREWERY where we enjoyed some local brew, caught some Longhorn bball, crushed on quite possibly the most adorable bike guy wearing a quilted hat and plaid shorts, and finished the day with some Moabrewed root beer floats. Post-race hydration part 2. :)

On Sunday we visited the Arch Lands outside of Moab before heading home...our plan was to take a scenic drive since our legs were still pretty pissed off, and found ourselves at the lower viewpoint of the Delicate Arch, pretty much the most famous of the arches.

Right there in the middle is the arch from the lower viewpoint.

This is where we had a conversation something like this:

Me: That's as close as you can get?
Nicky: No, there was an upper viewpoint that must be closer.
Me: Oh, we need to go there then...I need a better picture.

So, we park the car, get out to what we though was about a 100-yard hike to the Upper Viewpoint (much like the 100-yard hike to the lower viewpoint) and kept walking...and walking...and laughing at these fools who were scattering up a rock mountain about a mile in the distance. Turns out, we were those fools. We accidentally got on a strenuous 3-mile hiking trail to land us smack dab at the arch. Don't get me wrong, I was bitter the entire trip (didn't wear the right shoes, didn't bring water, suffered through a half marathon the day before...you get the idea) but the minute I turned the corner to see the arch, it was worth it.

For about 2 minutes, before we realized how freaking windy it was up there (hence, my hairdo in the photos). I was planning on walking down to get a photo of myself under the arch until the wind blew away my camera case and sunglasses and I realized this was "worse than Wyoming" wind and I shouldn't risk it. We hiked our way back and decided this was a perfect time to get the heck out of Utah.

I had never been to Moab before, and it was really quite great. I definitely want to go back sometime to explore the area, minus the half marathon.

Gorgeous.