Ultimate Team Running in the Sawtooth Relay
The Sawtooth Relay was held this weekend putting running teams of 6 members up against a 62 mile relay race over the top of Galena Summit as the runners made their way from Stanley, ID to Ketchum, ID. The relay is split into 12 different legs along highway 75 that passes through the heart of Idaho aside some of the most breathtaking scenery that someone would be lucky to see in their lifetime. I even heard that a guy decided to run the race all by himself this year! I’m sorry, that’s just insane.
The race has several grueling stages, including the monster stage 6 with 1,331 elevation gain to reach Galena Summit! But even though its a challenging race, the atmosphere is more like a big party, with runners dressed up as girl scouts (you guessed it, these were guys), brides, 80s pop stars, and I’m pretty sure I saw a guy wearing a US Flag patterned unitard, and almost all of the chase vehicles were decked out with the team names and appropriate (and some inappropriate) sayings.
There were friends of mine on 6 different teams in the race, and everybody was having such a good time. I think most people just run the race to be able to hang out and party afterwards…
And when you talk about having a running partner and the social obligation to keep up with running, this is such a perfect example, even the other teams are cheering everyone else on as they are running by. Its easy to see that runners are such a close knit community. Here is a team of racers including my friends Phil and Becca that are running across the finish with the runner finishing out the last leg of the relay.
