Comment on the damage we put our bodies through-aka the last great Timp hike.....

So I lived through Hobble Creek, completely discounting that the following week was the great Timp Hike of 2008. Last year Steff, Lisa and I had hiked it-all the way to the summit don't you worry-and we decided to do it again Labor Day weekend this year-maybe turning it into a tradition if you will.

Because of all the running I hadn't hiked all year so i was really excited to go, even though I knew that it is such a LONG hike. I just wanted to be in the mountains. My goal this year was to just do the saddle, or maybe the meadow, depending on how tired I was.

We met Steff at Kohler's in Alpine and then headed up the mountain. When we stopped to pay the $6 (I remember when it was $2, granted that was like in '99 but whatever) we learned that the trailhead parking lot was full. It was a silent ride to the trailhead-I was thinking there's no way I'm going to park a mile away from the trailhead, walk up to the trailhead, hike, and then have to walk another mile back to my car. Are you kidding me?

When we got to the turnoff the road was baracaded off, and a park ranger was giving us the parking spiel (sp?)-then out of nowhere he turns to his partner and asks if she gave away the last spot-she said no-he said the spot is yours then-so we drove up to the parking lot past all these people walking. I'm pretty sure they hated us. Oh well.

This is Steff and Lisa and I all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed ready to hike.





I feel like we got started a little late, because we weren't hiking in the dark all that long. I wore the trusty garmin so that I could mark our mileage-thinking that would help me on the way back to know how far I was from the end since it's such a LONG hike (it didn't really help). One thing we noted is that we were SO TIRED and dead. It was a situation. WE didn't think we should be that tired 1 mile into the hike.

These pics were taken on one of our snack breaks in the "first"meadow. I was pretty much ready to be done and to just sit and enjoy the view of the sun coming up over the mountains, but I wanted to make it to the "second" meadow right before the ascent to the top. This is where I realized I just wanted to enjoy the mountains on this hike.


This rocky part of the trail is my least favorite part of the entire trail. Seriously.


We decided to stop at this log for a water break-which is wehre we'd stopped before-no big deal. We were tired, and it was a good spot to stop. There were groups of people (or should I say BYU students) coming down from hiking up to see the sunrise. One kid tripped and almost landed on a log on the trail that would have impaled his chest-I said it was a good thing that I was a nurse just in case he had hurt himself. Steff pointed out that he was over my 8 pound weight limit-good point Steff.

Lisa had a small issue with her camelback-she put her backpack down and well, the mouthpiece fell in the dirt. We found this really funny-we couldn't stop laughing about it for like 5 minutes.


We finally made it to the meadow and had lunch. I decided that I wanted to head back down so that I could enjoy my hike without being in severe pain on the way down. Steff and Lisa wanted to head to the saddle-I was fine with that. It was actually really nice to hike alone-it was quiet and peaceful-I enjoyed it. And although I was thinking that I had turned around at a good time in order to enjoy the entire hike, I wanted to shoot myself the last mile. I did hike 10 miles though, so even though I didn't go to the saddle it was still a decent hike.





I made it to the bottom! My favorite part of the end of the hike was seeing a park ranger and a SWAT team guy heading up the trail with these huge guns and shells-they asked if I had seen the moose-I said no but that would have been cool for pictures-they said it wasn't cool for the people who ran into the moose. Apparently the moose was on the trail and got scared and started running, knocking people off the trail. I ran into one more ranger at the bottom, and in the parking lot there were like 5-6 ranger trucks and 5-6 police cars. I talked to a few more rangers, they said nobody was hurt, it was just scary. Then while sitting in my car waiting for Steff and Lisa I heard one of the rangers say they were going to 'take out' the moose because it was aggressive. Kind of interesting, right?

The best part of the hike was Purple Turtle afterwards for tator tots and shakes. They have the BEST fry sauce. So good!

On a different note, I think we're done with hiking Timp. Next year we'll try some different trails. Maybe some that aren't so painful.

Comment on the Hobble Creek Half......

Well the day finally came to run the Hobble Creek Half. It's something I've wanted to do for awhile. I planned on doing it in 2006 with my seester, but our entry fees were lost and they had no record of us putting in for the race, so that didn't happen. Last year I didn't want to deal with training AND a new job and moving and all that jazz, so this year seemed like a good time to do it.

So I conned Steff into doing it with me. And by con I mean I said hey Steff, let's do this, we can get a free t-shirt AND say we did a half marathon. Steff took a couple of days to think about it and then let me know she was in. We got registered on the first day of registration which apparently was amazing because the dudes at the running stores we went to were all shocked that we got in-apparently it's hard to do. But whatever-we were on our way.



I began training back in May or June, I can't remember. I'd been running 5 miles 3-4 times a week so I figured it would be no big deal. I did pretty good until July 24th when I ran 10 miles, after that I hit a training wall and I was seriously over it. I pretty much ditched the training program after that. Something I won't do again I'll tell you that much. I ran with Steff a few times after that but mostly it was painful just to get 3-4 miles in.

Anyway the day of the race drew near. I had my new shoes all broken in thanks to Wasatch Running Company (they were fantastic), my gummy energy shots and my new waist-water-holder thinger. The one glitch in the plan came when we found out that headphones were banned. That pretty much ticked me off but we didn't want to chance losing our Ipods, so we went without them. Of course there were people who used them anyway but whatever-we were rule followers. I'm sure we'll be blessed in heaven or something.

Friday afternoon of the race (August 22nd if you will) Steff and I (and Lisa our faithful helper/photographer/person we dragged out running with us on all of our vacays) went to Runner's Corner in Orem to get our packets. We were seriously surprised to find that we were numbers 344 & 345. That's so great!


We had a pre-race dinner at CPK-salads and a chicken bbq pizza on whole wheat crust. So good! I spent the night at Steff's house. We both got really nervous when Lisa left-we realized that there was no turning back and we were really going to do this. We were both trying to just think of this as a run in the mountains, we just wished we didn't have to get up and catch a bus to do it. Before I went to bed I was reading a book and I came acrossed this paragraph-which made me laugh-it totally described how we were feeling:

"The New York City Marathon was fun, it was interesting, and it was a unique new challenge for me, but it was very time-consuming to train for. I don't mind running every day, but I'm not sure about the whole business of riding from the finish line to the start on a bus, then jogging around with thirty-five thousand other people waiting for the gun to go off. I'd rather just go running on my own and have a quiet sixty minutes out somewhere on the road." Ed Viesturs from No Shortcuts To The Top

Anyway we got up at 4:30 and we were on the road by 5, following a long stream of cars to Mapleton City Park where we caught the bus up the canyon. We had a very helpful slightly obnoxious girl sitting in front of us who talked the whole way up the canyon-no big deal. Anyway we got dropped off and went to the bathroom and then hung around for 45 minutes waiting for the race to start. We talked with a few people Steff new, and then we situated ourselves in the back of the pack with the slow runners-we knew where we belonged. Actually, I was a slow runner, Steff's pretty fast.

Anyway the gun went off at 7:30 and it was great. I was all over it for the first 6.5 miles, then I hit a wall and ended up running/walking the rest of it. It wasn't bad to run without the Ipod, in fact it was kind of enjoyable. People who were camping in the canyon came out and cheered us on which was really fun. I gave some kids high-fives. I was really good with the positive self-talk until mile 10 when I really just wanted to die, and I was thinking that I wouldn't ever make it to the end. But finally I got back to the park and Lisa and Em were there snapping pictures. I kind of got teary-eyed, or I would have had I had any liquid left in my body to make tears. I yelled out where is the finish line-I couldn't see it! Turns out I had to run around a building on some grass to get there. As I rounded the corner Steff (who had finished way before me) came out and ran the last hundred yards with me-that was so great! then I crossed the finish line-in less than 3 hours (barely) :o). But at least I finished. I got the all-important t-shirt and some much needed water. We took some pictures and limped (literally) back to my car. Trish and RJ and Em and Lisa met us at Gandolfo's in Springville for sandwiches-the best tasting sandwiches ever. Then I took Steff home, got my stuff and went home and took a much needed bath. I spent the rest of the day lounging on the couch watching Bones and icing my knee. Steff came up for a celebratory dinner at Johnny Carino's and Lisa and I made it to Stake Conference that night. Good times.



So right after the race I was saying I'd never do it again. Ever. It was painful. But by the time I got home I decided I would-I want to do a better time. So I'm thinking Hobble Creek again next year-maybe with Marie (I saw your comment on facebook!) and/or the Provo half marathon-taking it back to my roots. I will do things differently next year-like actually follow through with the complete training program and maybe not gain weight during training. Just a thought-but all in all I'm glad I did it-and I'm really glad Steff did it with me-it was a bonding experience!

Comments on my favorite place to go in the summer....

So every August for our Mills 'family reunion' we have gone to Star Valley. It's our family's favorite place to go. We like to golf, go into Jackson, spend time at the pool, and basically just hang out. For the last 10 years we have stayed at the Cabin Creek Inn, which has these cute little cabins that you can stay in-each one has a different theme-it's so fun! The best part of Cabin Creek is the breakfast. I look forward to the french toast every year.

Since Steff and I are training for the Hobble Creek Half Marathon we had the wonderful opportunity of running every morning-except Sunday our rest day-good thing it's so pretty up there because holy crap those runs were hard. I don't know how this race thing is going to go or who's idea it was.....

We tried golfing twice. This is Steff, me, Em, Lisa and Jamie after our first attempt to get in 18, we got rained out. Luckily Leon, the oh-so-helpful-not-easily-confused guy who was running the clubhouse gave us rainchecks.

That night even though it was still cold and damp we had our barbeque and made smores with Steff's smore maker-this is Jenna and I. Jenna wasn't annoying to me at all (heart you!). I just noticed that we were both wearing our signature colors-mine is orange, Jenna's is pink.

Saturday the Pope's went to Jackson since Pat, Ron and Jamie were leaving on Sunday (our usual Jackson day), and so Mom and Jenna and I were on our own for lunch, we tried the Goofy Bear which is a new little restaraunt up on the ranch (it is SO GOOD). Unfortunately they didn't open until 4 so we ended up at the Cheese Factory, but at least we got to take a seester peecture by the daisies.

We attempted doing 9 holes Saturday afternoon. This is what happened on hole 6 (or maybe it was 7, I can't remember-but I'm sure Lisa knows)-I mean can you SEE those raindrops? They were falling so hard!

Jenna hopped in the golf cart with us in an attempt to stay somewhat dry as we raced back to the clubhouse.

And here is our rainout x2....

This our girls pic right before church-Pat, Lisa, Jenna, Jamie, Steff, Em, Me, my mom. I love going to church in Star Valley. Although this year I slept through it-I was so tired from all the running. Sad....

After church the Pope girls stayed in Star Valley to swim and Mom, Jenna and I went to Jackson to have dinner at the Teton Steakhouse (some friends in Pocatello used to work there in the summers and so I really wanted to try it out. Waffs was right-they have the best clam chowder!) But before we headed out we had to stop at the Mav for cokes.

We stopped along the river on the way up the canyon to take pics-I love this one of me and jenna and the one of me and my mom...

Jenna and I getting fudge at Yippy I-O...

This is Jenna and I walking to a store, turns out a storm was coming and so we ended up getting out of dodge and heading back to Star Valley

My mom thought a good idea would be to take a picture of all of us with our golf clubs to send to Grandma and Grandpa Mills who started it all but haven't been able to make it up the last couple of years. Jenna is holding a book because well, she doesn't golf, doesn't want to golf, and takes a book on the course just in case she gets bored.

All in all a good time was had by all-of course we already have our cabins booked for next year. Party extended!