Zion Trip (Half Marathon)...

March 23, 2013...I was suppose to run the Zion Half Marathon (the first year they had been given permission to run just outside the park).  I started training in January for the race, and found out I had a torn meniscus in my right knee.  I was sooo bummed!  I tore it the previous year during the half marathon

that Mandy Woodhouse put on through her company down Big Cottonwood Canyon.  Becky Weaver and I were running and I tore it.  I just didn't realize it was torn until I started training for this one.  I actually went in and got it checked out because I was having so many problems with it.  I signed up for the Zion Half Marathon and was so

excited to have some of my friends to run with.  We had Josh Caraccio, Brian Chatterton, Lake Leafty and Kristi Swan that had decided to run it from the pharmacy at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center.  We were so excited to enter as a team.  We all had started training months before, so we were just talking about it all the time and just having fun knowing we would be going on this trip.  Anyway...when I found out my meniscus was torn and I wouldn't be able to run in the race, I decided that I was going to go support my friends even if I couldn't run!  It was such a fun trip to go on!  John came with me and Josh and his dog, Roxie, came

along as well.  We got our hotel at the Pioneer Lodge (my favorite place to stay down there).  It is right outside the south entrance to the park.  The finish line was about 3/4 a mile away.  John and I got up super early to take Brian and Josh to the finish line so they could be bussed to the starting line.  We dropped them off and then went back to bed.  We tried to time their finish line perfectly, but we didn't

quite make it.  We saw Josh running by while we were walking to the finish line.  We took some pictures and met them at the finish line.  They did such a great job!  We went out to breakfast right after with Josh, Brian and Camille (Brian's wife).  Then we decided to go on a hike.  We did Angel's Landing.  If you took your medals to the top of Angel's Landing within 24 hours of the race and take a picture of you at the top with your shirt on and your medal, you are able to be in the Angel's club! You can get into the race next year for cheaper and

have the bragging rights as well!  So...we did just that.  It was so much fun to go up there and do that hike again.  John and I had done that hike months before, and we found our heart-shaped rock that we left on the side of the trail under a rock.  It was amazing that it was still there, and that we actually knew exactly where it was.  We took a picture and then enjoyed the rest of the hike.  It was fun to do the hike with other friends.  It is a really nice hike, and I can't believe that Josh and Brian both wanted

to do it after they had just run 13.1 miles.  They are crazy good sports.  After the hike, Brian and Camille had to get back to their kids in northern Utah.  Josh, John and I stayed and explored with Roxie.  We parked on the side of the road towards the northeastern side of the park and just went exploring.  It was beautiful!  We went to the petroglyphs and then we kept hiking back into the canyon.  We found a spot and

Josh just fell on the warm red rock and stayed there with Roxie.  John found a big tall "altar" that he wanted to climb too.  I started climbing, but I was slipping on the rock and was nervous I would fall, so I decided to not go any further.  John kept going, and I decided to just take

pictures of him.  He got to the top and found all these other big petroglyphs.  He said there were a lot of them and they were really big and far away.  They were in the distance and he didn't have a camera, so he couldn't really show us what they looked like.  We are thinking that next time we go to Zions, we won't do any of the hikes we've done before.  We decided that we will just park on the side of the road and hike into the park and just

explore the canyons.  There are no limits there, you can explore everything.  There is so much to see and so much explore that you miss so much if you just go on the normal marked hikes.  It is the hiking off the trails that really allows you to see so much of the beauty that is there.  The way the red rock was formed is just so crazy!  Anyway, we had a wonderful trip, and decided that our fun tradition to go to Zion every year needs to remain!