ULTOT aka Utah Lake Top of Timp

At the end of July Scott was in Costa Rica.  Sarah had the idea to participate in an epic adventure one Saturday morning and talked me into coming along.  Friends talking me into adventures is usually the way I get involved.  (Something I'm really missing about Sarah.  She always has something in mind to do and gets me to come along.  From a day at the beach with the kids to an adventure like the ULTOT). 

The Timp Tri Club was hosting this event called the ULTOT.  The group starts with a swim in Utah Lake at the A.F. boat harbor, hops on bikes and rides up to the Timpanooke campground, parks the bike and runs to the top of Timpanogos Mountain.  Are you kidding?  That sounds so hard and grueling!  I'm in.  I just hope that I'll survive and for me that includes enjoying it.  So since Scott was out of the country, I found a very responsible young women in the ward to take care of Eric and Rubie--because this was an all day event. And agreed to come along.  Because I'm still working on my swim I wasn't ready for a swim in the lake yet.  So I showed up at the boat harbor just as Sarah swam away in the chilly, early dawn hours.  20 minutes later she was back and we were ready to go on the bikes.

Read to roll!

Sarah along the Alpine Highway headed into the A.F. canyon.

 Sarah and I rode with Jamison from A.F. up to the camp ground.  We had a nice ride. 

 

Sarah and Jamison on the canyon rode.

 We expected the rest of the group to catch up to us.  But nobody showed up until I was changing out of my biking shorts to running shorts behind the truck.  Hah! Just in time to snap some pictures before we took off running.

Sarah and me with Keena.

Most of the club participants before the run.

I was so excited to be doing an even with Keena and Melissa--real Iron Women.  I was totally geeky telling them I thought they were so cool and asking for a picture with them.  At this point, I was certain I would be eating their dust.

Enthusiastic and excited about this part of the adventure. 

There goes Sarah, getting ahead of me in a beautiful alpine meadow.

Sarah running threw the shale.

 It was a hard run on the way up.  The day was hot and humid. I was drinking a lot of water and still feeling so thirsty.  Sarah did get a few minutes ahead of me.  There were parts that I couldn't really "run".  I was going much faster than other hikers, but due to the terrain it was just really fast hiking, but we were moving.  Our run up took about 2 hours.  I'll have to look at Sarah's blog to get the time, I can't remember exactly.

View from the top. Gorgeous!

 At the top I thought I was out of water, but I had about 8 oz.  I drank that but needed more.  I was not prepared for needing that much water.  I should have also had my camelback.  I was carrying about 32 oz in a running fuel belt.  I asked if anyone had water to spare and a really nice guy gave me 12 oz.  I drank 4 oz right away.  I only spent about 5 minutes at the top.  On the way down at the really steep switchbacks, the ones that remind me of Lumbard street in San Francisco is where I ran into Keena and Melissa.  The rest of the group was strewn out along the trail almost all the way back down to the campground.

Whew, time for a break at the top.

Utah Valley.

Thanks for getting me to the top, buddy.

I need food and water.

Is she even tired?  She just gets energized by the enormity of this workout.

 Sarah took off down a few minutes before me.  She had been about 5 minutes ahead of me to get to the top.  She couldn't cool down too much so took off down before me.  Down was hard because I felt really thirsty.  I asked some women, a couple, and some scouts for extra water.  Thank goodness for people carrying extra water, and really cold water at that.  People were generous and good.  I don't think I would have made it without their help.  What a lesson to learn.

Moose on the trail.

 By the time I reached the parts of the trail where there were streams cascading near and over the trail, I kept soaking a bandanna with water and soaking my hair and body.  That helped so much to cool myself down that way.  The run down took just as long as the run up.  Maybe a few minutes longer because I actually took a pee break.  And stopped a few times to ask people for water.

All the bikes tethered to a tree at the campground.

 I was so happy to get back to the campground.  There was Sarah lying down by a picnic table elevating her feet.  I joined her.  We cleaned ourselves off in a faucet the best we could.

Sweaty and exhausted after a good long run.

 And though we were sweaty and tired, we felt so good.  The way back to the lake was all down hill.  We got back on our bikes, Jamison was there by this time and we rode back down.  Feeling fantastic after a great epic adventure.