Moab

This last weekend we headed to Moab to cheer my dad on as he ran his first marathon the Moab Trail Marathon.  We left late afternoon on Friday hoping to get to Moab in time for my Dad to sign in.  We made it on time and then we headed over to Pasta J's.  Our excuse to go here was so my Dad could carbo load,  but this place met our expectations and then some.  We ended up eating her again the next night it was so good!

We woke up on Saturday pretty early to get ready and get my Dad to the starting line by 8:45ish.  It was a balmy 38 degrees outside.  We bundled Crew and headed to the starting line.

My Dad was really excited to get started.  He has been training for this race for awhile and was excited to finally be here.  I'll be honest, if it were me, I would have been throwing up at this point because I was so anxious.  Nope, not my Dad, he was all smiles and just saying how excited he was for this adventure.

 After he took off we knew we had some time before he was done so we thought we would go and drive up the canyon and see what we could find.

We ended up along the marathon route so we talked to a volunteer and asked him if there was a place where we could cheer the runners on.  The volunteers (they were the absolute cutest locals ever), told us that we could hike up the canyon. The runners had to run up and punch there passes and then run back down the same canyon to finish the race.  We thought it would be really fun to hike up the mile and be there to punch my Dad's pass as he came through.  We knew this would really surprise him.  We bush-whacked our way through the canyon to try and avoid the trail as to not bug the runners.  It was a crazy trail for the runners.  There were low hanging bushes and water crossings they had to maneuver through.  It was fun to watch them.

We were a few minutes behind Alec.  When we got to the top we see Alec chatting it up with the runners while punching there bibs.  Crew was just chilling next to him.  Some of the runners stopped to grab pictures with Crew.  It was really funny!

We were so excited when we saw my Dad.  His face was priceless when he realized it was us.  He said that he thought he heard Alec's voice but thought there was no way.  It was so fun to see him and cheer him on at his half way mark!

Crew was an absolute champ.  No complaining whatsoever.  On the way home he took a nap in the carrier, but I have to say, I think he loves to hike!

 After hiking out of the canyon we headed back to the finish line to be there when my dad came back.  So this race was BRUTAL!  He was telling us about it and it made me tired just listening to him.  So it was all off road.  It was full of steep slick rock you had to hold on to rope to get up, you had ladders to climb, waist deep water to wade through, tunnels to go under, and just crazy technical terrain.  We were talking to some runners that do 100 milers and they said this was the hardest they have ever done.  So we thought it was cruel of the race officials to make the runners come to the finish area and have to continue 3 more miles through some of the roughest terrain of the race to finish the race off.  It was fun for us though because we got to see him for a second and cheer him on with only 3 more miles to go after a long run.  He was all smiles.  We were impressed.  He was doing amazing!

  Here he is finishing strong!

We woke up today after all sleeping in a little.  We got ready to go and then headed into Arches National Park to drive around.  We ended up at Double arch and hiked around it was so cool!

 Over by Delicate arch we ended up off roading a bit.  It was fun, but a little nerve racking at the same time.  We tried to get the men to turn around, but they were not having it.  They wanted to have there fun even though that meant going past a closed gate......:)

Such a fun trip.  Crazy to come home and be driving through snow to get here.  Great job Dad!  Pretty dang impressed he did that.