Corporate Games XC 5K Report - Andrea

The company that I work for, BD Medical, is participating in the Salt Lake County Corporate Games. The purpose of the games is to compete with other companies in the valley in a wide range of sports. It's a really neat way to promote living a healthy lifestyle and making friends within the company, all while in competition with others!

The first event of the games was the Cross Country 5K. It was actually more like 3.3-3.4 miles, but that's okay :) The course consisted of three grass loops around the Cottonwood Complex Park. I haven't participated in a cross country race since high school, and it was about as hard as I remembered. Road racing doesn't quite translate to XC - but it's a great workout!

After a hard sprint off the start, I tried to get into a sustainable pace. There were quite a few steep hills throughout the course that made my breathing especially labored but maintained a consistent effort for the most part. My first lap was the fastest (due to trying not to get trampled at the start) with 2nd and 3rd laps about the same. Final time was 20:34 for 1st Place. Not too bad for a 70 mile week coming on the heels of our epic Tetons vacation!

The rest of the BD Medical team did great - I was very proud and excited to have them come out for the event as well. Unfortunately, we didn't realize that we had to have two girls for scoring, so I think we were disqualified for points. Oh well. Maybe next year I can be in charge and sucker a lot more people (especially girls) into doing it!

I am participating in several other events (that will be much more comedic) such as a mountain biking race, ultimate frisbee, and soccer. More to come...should be entertaining...

Olympic Track & Field Schedule

Writing About Running has posted the entire Olympic Track and Field schedule with all US time zones. I've taken their list and made an abbreviated version - just some of the main events I am interested in watching, with all time zones US Mountain (Utah). Check out their site for more events and other time zones.

For me, the Olympics really start on Friday afternoon!

The first weekend of action will feature the men's and women's 10,000m races, as well as the women's marathon. It should be really exciting, as there will be some Americans in the mix in the M-10K and the marathon. And then of course the BIGGEST event of the weekend will be Bolt vs. the world in the men's 100 meters on Sunday.

Friday, August 3:
Men’s 3000 Steeplechase Semifinal	6:00 AM
Men’s 1500 Prelims	1:05 PM
Women’s 10,000 Final	2:25 PM
Saturday, August 4:
Men’s 400 Prelims	3:35 AM
Women’s 100 Semifinal	12:35 PM
Women’s 400 Semifinal	1:05 PM
Men’s 10,000 Final	2:15 PM
Women’s 100 Final	2:55 PM
Sunday, August 5:
Women’s Marathon Final	4:00 AM
Men’s 100 Semifinal	12:45 PM
Men’s 1500 Semifinal	1:15 PM
Men’s 400 Semifinal	1:40 PM
Women’s 400 Final	2:10 PM
Men’s 3000 Steeplechase Final	2:25 PM
Men’s 100 Final	2:50 PM
Monday, August 6:
Men’s 800 Prelims	3:50 AM
Women’s 1500 Prelims	4:45 AM
Women’s 200 Prelims	12:20 PM
Men’s 400 Hurdles Final	1:45 PM
Women’s 3000 Steeplechase Final	2:05 PM
Men’s 400 Final	2:30 PM
Tuesday, August 7:
Women’s 5000 Semifinal	3:55 AM
Women’s 100 Hurdles Semifinal	12:15 PM
Men’s 800 Semifinal	12:55 PM
Women’s 200 Semifinal	1:25 PM
Women’s 100 Hurdles Final	2:00 PM
Men’s 1500 Final	2:15 PM
Wednesday, August 8:
Men’s 5000 Semifinal	3:45 AM
Women’s 800 Prelims	4:35 AM
Men’s 110 Hurdles Semifinal	12:15 PM
Women’s 1500 Semifinal	12:45 PM
Men’s 200 Semifinal	1:10 PM
Women’s 400 Hurdles Final	1:45 PM
Women’s 200 Final	2:00 PM
Men’s 110 Hurdles Final	2:15 PM
Thursday, August 9:
Women’s 800 Semifinal	12:30 PM
Men’s 800 Final	1:00 PM
Men’s 200 Final	1:55 PM
Men’s 1500 (Decathlon)	2:20 PM
Friday, August 10:
Men’s 4x100 Relay Semifinal	12:45 PM
Women’s 5000 Final	1:05 PM
Women’s 4x100 Relay Final	1:40 PM
Women’s 1500 Final	1:55 PM
Men’s 4x400 Relay Final	2:20 PM
Saturday, August 11:
Men’s 5000 Final	12:30 PM
Women’s 800 Final	1:00 PM
Women’s 4x400 Relay Final	1:25 PM
Men’s 4x100 Relay Final	2:00 PM
Sunday, August 12:
Men’s Marathon Final	4:00 AM

Which events are you most excited to watch?!?! As you can tell from my "narrowed down" list - I've only narrowed it down to about 25 events :-)

Teton Vacation Roundup

Five days in the Tetons - even for a duo as active as us - isn't enough to even scratch the surface of what this area had to offer. We had an absolutely amazing trip.

I've broken the "TRs" into six segments / photo galleries. As always - if you'd like more information, GPS tracks, etc. on any of these places - don't hesitate to leave a comment or shoot us an email.

Teton vacation links:

Mountain Biking in Teton Village and Cache Creek
Hiking the Paintbrush-Cascade Canyon Loop
Rafting the Snake River
Kayaking on Jackson Lake
Running all over the Tetons
Teton Randomness (Pictures that didn't fit elsewhere, but are still awesome!)

Teton Randomness (Pictures that didn't fit elsewhere, but are still awesome!)

[Tetons Vacation - Table of Contents]

More pictures that didn't have a home in any of the other pages about the trip...

Buffalo party!

"Tell me if he starts to charge the car!"

This is where we stayed - a condo in Teton Village

Vacation is tiring!

McDonalds has dipped cones now?!?!?!

Oh and yeah, we still like ice cream :-)  Currently - we're obsessed with the serve-yourself soft-serve at Maverik stations!

Mountain Biking in Teton Village and Cache Creek

[Tetons Vacation - Table of Contents]

We are very much beginner/intermediate mountain bikers (ie. we're very fit but not good at the technical stuff!). Still, we enjoy getting out once in a while to give the legs a break from the pounding of running and hiking. Since we were staying in Teton Village, we checked out some of their new trails one afternoon - they have a new lift-served downhill biking park, but we used human power to get up, ride a XC loop (Saratoga trail), then bomb (ie. ride the brakes!) down some of the new downhill trails.

On our last day in Wyoming, we checked out the Cache Creek area near Snow King. This area is awesome for XC mountain biking (and would also be fantastic for trail running). We linked up the Cache Creek and Putt-Putt trails for a 14 mile loop. Fun singletrack and big views - hard to beat that!

Here's some informational links to the trails we rode:
Teton Village Mountain Biking
Greater Snow King Trail Network

Teton Village biking - this is a new bridge they just installed

Snow King ski area in Jackson

Cache Creek

Heading up on the Putt-Putt trail

Finishing up the Putt-Putt

Riding back to Jackson on the dirt road

Good thing for everyone else that I don't wear cycling clothes very often! :-)

Kayaking on Jackson Lake

[Tetons Vacation - Table of Contents]

The day after rafting on the Snake River, we had the urge to get back on the water. Kayaking is always fun, especially on lakes with stunning views - like Jackson Lake. Since we were already at the northern end of the park in the morning for a trail run, we headed over to Colter Bay, had lunch, then rented some kayaks for a few hours. Our timing was perfect - 10 minutes after finishing the kayak tour, another rain storm rolled in.

This was Andrea's first time kayaking, and she loved it.

Colter Bay

The big peak out in the distance across the lake is Mt Moran

Storm rolling in