Zac's First 50: Prep and Start

I'm having a hard time thinking through how to blog about this, so I'm just going to dive in with some pictures from the beginning, and hopefully it will all make some sort of sense, be at least marginally interesting, and won't go on tooooo long. We hope. :)

The night before Zac stopped at the store to pick up some things we needed for race day. I went to the store later to pick up the things he forgot. And then we sent my niece to the gas station even later to get what I had forgotten. Of course I was feeling just a little panicky and unprepared by that point. But we finally got everything done, bags packed, instructions left for babysitters, and the car loaded. Phew!! (This endeavor required 3 plans: Zac's eating and running plan, the "eating and keeping busy in the car" plan, and the "taking care of kids at home" plan.")

So - we left at 6 am in the morning to drive out to the start out by Faust UT.

The support crew vehicle:

posing up by the start:

sun coming up - yay!:

the start line:

(there were actually 4 starts, 5 am for the slow 100 milers, 6 am for the slow 50 milers, 7 am for the normal 100 milers and 8 am for the normal 50 milers. So these are the 50 milers at 8 am who deemed themselves "normal." hahaha.)

Zac is in the red jacket with the white number on his leg (left of the guy with the white shirt)

And they're off!!!:

The cars were instructed to wait 15 min while the runners came down off the hill before heading off to "crew their runners."

We had no idea what we were in for, but before we knew it, we were off, too. And so the fun begins . . .