Wasatch Back Relay 2008

Team Williams came back for a second year of relay excitement in the Ragnar Wasatch Back Relay 2008 on June 20 and 21. Last year (2007) was the inaugural year for Team Williams running the relay. We run each year in honor of Chris Williams and his family; especially those that were killed in a tragic auto accident in February 2008. Chris' wife, Michelle, two children and an unborn child were killed when hit by a drunk teenage driver that night. Despite the heartwrenching event, Chris handled himself with great humility and compassion during the following months. As college and Sigma Chi fraternity friends, we decided it would be great to honor his family in a fun and active way - by running a 178 mile relay race from Logan to Park City. This gave 11 of Chris' friends a tangible opportunity to spend time with Chris and allow him to let his hair down and have some crazy fun for 28 hours. We even raised a little money for MADD. 2007 was such a blast that we decided to continue the fun in 2008.

The make-up of the 2008 team changed slightly, but the fun comradarie continued. The first of two vans was made up of Mark Quinn, Paul Winterton, Ken Diederich (all three returning from 2007), Scott Mayeda, Sam Larsen and Matt Steiner (first timers). Their van was driven by long time friend Jeff Vincent. Van 2 included Chris, Ed Lauder, Dave Dellenbach, Terry O Mura, and Tony Christensen (all returning runners); the only newcomer was Dave Barnes. Christensen held the reins (drove the van) for the second year in a row.

This year, due to the expanded field of teams (570), we got a later start time about 11:40 AM. Van 1 again started off in Logan. It was a hot day; almost as hot as last year. Temp's were around 90 when Van 2 met up with Van 1 at the first major exchange in Liberty, UT. Prior to the exchange, we (Van 2) made a stop at the market in Liberty for a sandwich. We also took the opportunity to decorate the van with all manner of window paints. Ken (from Van 2) passed off to Dave Barnes, our (Van 1) first runner. After making our way through the very busy exchange point, the support team kicked into action. Our modus operandi is to pull ahead of our runner at mile 1. As they approach one person pops out of the van with a drink of water to offer the runner, another person usually sprays the runner with water from a giant bug sprayer, and sometimes a third person takes picture or video of the runner. This pattern continues throughout the runner's leg. On steeper or hotter legs, this frequency might increase to every 1/2 mile. This approach seems to work well keeping our runners both well hydrated and happy.

Our second runner, running the same leg as last year was Dave Dellenbach. Terry O Mura was next followed by Ed Lauder. The first four legs were relatively flat and easy as they meandered through the Ogden Valley around Pineview Reservoir. My leg started heading up Snow Basin road. It was obviously an uphill slog. I managed to run the whole thing, thanks to frequent water support from the van along the way. Fortunately it was past 7:00 PM so the temperature started to drop. After 3 miles of uphill, the last 3/4 mile was a quick downhill to the next exchange point with Chris. I believe I averaged about 9 minute miles which I was pretty happy with with all of the uphill. Chris' leg was also uphill almost all the way to Snow Basin. He was real strong; even better than last year when he had his lingering knee problem from the car accident. Paul Winterton from Van 1 even joined Chris for the last little bit of this leg.

After a quick exchange, we headed down Trapper's Loop. Mark Quinn had the next nearly 8 mile grueling downhill leg. We gave him a water stop along with throwing a few "snaps" at him just to keep him awake. Rather than eating a gut burger at Snow Basin, we decided to drive ahead to our next major exchange at East Canyon. We had a good experience last year eating a spaghetti dinner there, courtesy of Fazoli's. We did the same this year. By now it was about 10:30 PM and we actually tried to get some shut eye in the parking lot. Some of us tried to sleep in the van (Excursion) but the only one successful was Chris. He expressed his sleep success with some snoring that kept the rest of awake. A few others took a try at sleeping outside, either on picnic tables (Ed and Dave Barnes) and in an adjacent field (Dave Dellenbach). I think they managed an hour or so of sleep. But it wasn't long before it was about 1:30 AM and our turn to meet Ken Diederich coming in from his leg.

Dave Barnes took the baton from Ken and headed out of East Canyon. He then passed off to Dellenbach who had a long downhill run in the wee hours of Saturday morning. By this time, the van was listening to "The Doors" and starting to hallucinate. The grass was playing tricks with our eyes. The key with Dellenbach was to always tell him he had one more mile left. That seemed to keep him going. Terry then picked up and looked strong despite some muscle problems. We plugged along past Echo Reservoir. Ed continued on as faint signs of dawn began to appear. He did awesome, but was discouraged as he was passed by one of the elite college runners. What can you do? I then grabbed the baton. It was 39 degrees and about 5:00 AM. As I ran from Hoytsville to Wanship (4.6 miles), the birds began to chirp in the dawn continued to break. I managed to have a net "kill" count of about 6, meaning I passed 8 runners but was passed by 2. One of the runners that passed me was an ultra runner; that is their team consists of 6 runners instead of 12 so they run two legs to each of our one. This is an idea we're toying with for next year.

By the time I handed off to Chris, you could see without the aid of a headlamp. He was strong heading up to Rockport Reservoir. He and the rest of our team was so fast that we approached the next major exchange before the arrival of Van 1. Apparantly they didn't receive our test messages informing them of our impending arrival. This exchange turned out to be a major traffic jam and both Van 2 and 1 were caught in the jam. Chris actually got on his hands and knees for part of his leg so as not to arrive at the exchange too early. He add to wait about 15 minutes at the exchange for us to arrive. Van 2 finally caught up with us and they continued on with their portion. It was past 6:00 AM and we (Kathy) slept drove to Heber, passing through Oakley and Kamas. We crashed for a few hours at Josh and Amber's until Kathy woke us up and hustled us into Heber for our final major exchange.

By 11:00 AM it was already starting to heat up. Dave B. blazed through his leg through Heber and Charleston. Dave D. picked up and headed for Midway. During his long leg, his sons and father, Elder Dellenbach, joined him for the run, just like last year. Elder Dellenbach, now in his 70's, used to run track for Davis High. This year he ran in a nice pair of grey slacks. At Wasatch Mtn. State Park Terry began his brutal and dusty leg up towards Guardsman's pass. He was strong, but you could tell the heat and dust was getting to him. For Terry and Ed's leg the water stop frequency increased. Ed continued on, running the "Ragnar" leg, known as the toughest of the 36 legs nearly up to the Guardsman summit. It was fun to watch Ed actually run the whole thing along with a few other strong runners. He handed off to me about 1 mile from the summit. It was now 2 or 3 in the afternoon. Fortunately at that altitude the temp wasn't too bad. After I summitted at Deer Valley, it was a grueling, steep nearly 6 mile run downhill. There was even a few uphills thrown in. I finished pretty strong in the heat at the base of Deer Valley and handed off to Chris for the final leg.

Our van made a quick stop at Laurel and Dave's condo (which I ran past) to pick up Karen, Zach, and Marissa. (They were in town for a Jazz Jam Camp). We caught up with Chris and made our way to the new finish line out at the Quinn Recreation Complex (?). Although it was crowded, there was a lot more space there on the soccer field than last year on downtown main street. We met up with the other van and waited with them for Chris to make his final entrance. Poor Chris had to run about 3 miles without any water support. As he came around the bend, he joined the 11 of us and we all ran together through the finish line. There's nothing quite like crossing the finish line together after running as a team for 28 hours and 27 minutes.

There were many family members there to cheer us on and greet us at the finish line. We were so excited about our WBR experience that we immediately signed up for 2009 and Team Williams is officially back as Team 59.