Laurel Highlands 70mi race and relay

June 7th, 2013:  Finally the big trail adventure had all been anticipating had arrived (all except Neal, this is old news for him, and just another Ultra to add to his collection).  What an adventure it turned out to be!  The weather was perfect!  Just a little wet, which made for some slippery muddy rocks and trails.  We caravan-ed to Ohiopyle in 2 vans, there were a total of 12 of us participating in one way or another.  One all- girls relay team:  Part-Time Models (Kristin, Amy, Heather, Kim and Aspen, our last minute fill-in for Ashley who had an injury plus a bad case of poison ivy).  6 guys competing in the 50k (Travis, Garrett, Brian, Mike, Jon, Joe and .  And 1 freak doing all 70miles, AGAIN (that would be Neal).  We arrived around 6:15pm (Friday Evening), fashionably late for our welcome pasta dinner and orientation to the Laurel Highland Trail.  And then went to the starting line for a few photo-ops.   Off to bed we went, for what seemed like a few minutes of shut-eye.  5:30am came quickly and Neal and I started the race.  I ran the first leg, which was 19.2 miles.  I hoped to hang with the hubby for a while but he left me in his dust at mile 2 or maybe it was 3, I can't remember.  All I remember is thinking "Holy Crap this hill is steep and I am only at mile 2".  It was harder and steeper and crazier than I expected or had trained for.  I finished the 19.2 miles, and an elevation gain of approximately 4500ft, in around 4 hours.  Amy passed Neal in the middle of her leg, just in case anyone was wondering.  Part-Time Models ended the day at 7:24pm and we were the first all-girls team to finish which earned us a cool trophy!  We also set a new all-girls team course record of 13 hrs 56 minutes.  We attempted to crew Neal while crewing our own team, and he ended up finishing in 16 hours 35 minutes, which was nearly an hour and a half faster than last year!  The guys did an amazing job on the 50k as well!  An adventure to remember with people we will never forget!

 

 

These little critters were dropping out of the trees all over us.  A little creepy but sort of cute.

 

12 people in one tiny hotel room.  This was our "shower" hotel.  We actually drove ourselves home after this race, we left around midnight.  It was a scary exhausted 3.5 hour drive, but we all made it home safely somehow.