Salt Lake Art Fair

This weekend was the Salt Lake City Art Fair. It's no where near as big as the Ann Arbor one, but we got to see Indigo perform with her studio :) Anyway, we met up with a few residents for the performance and spent the rest of the day walking around the fair and then went to dinner at Squatters.

Here's what we looked like at the art fair:

Donut Falls - Big Cottonwood Canyon

So we've been looking for hikes to take you all on when you come visit...and we found a short one today with a mini reward at the end: Donut Falls. It's just up Big Cottonwood Canyon 9 miles...so just about 10 miles from our apartment. The hike itself is only about 3/4 of a mile and totally doable...there were a ton of kids on it today. We ran it for fun and that wasn't very bad either! :) In all, a good starting off hike when you come!

Here's what it looks like at the end:
Aaaaand, I think we could scale/climb the rocks (carefully!) to get to the top:
So get here already!

Our First Day!

Today was our first day of residency. We picked out our long white coats. Now we're drinking Santana champagne to celebrate. Life is good.

Run. Drive. Sleep? Repeat: Ragnar Relay Part 3

This is an example of a runner handoff during the first evening of the relay last weekend. At this point our team had been running for about 12 hours straight. You'll notice Paula coming in wearing a green shirt and then slapping the slap-bracelet against my arm so I could begin my second run.

Although there were 600 teams in the race it was pretty spread out by this time of day. There were large stretches where we wouldn't see another runner on the road.

Run. Drive. Sleep? Repeat: Ragnar Relay Part 2

We're 2 days out now and we're almost (almost) walking normally :) Anyway, you haven't seen one of these in a while...so here's what we looked like before our 2nd leg:
(That's our residency director over Matt's shoulder...he ran the relay with us and had some of the hardest legs in the race!)

So even with all of the serious running we did in the Ragnar, there was still plenty of time to laugh. To start, most everyone decorates their van and a ton of the team names are very creative. For example, one team was running for Rabies Awareness...they had signs to hold up as their runners past, stuffed animals dragging behind their van and their runners would even shout out statistics on rabies (apparently it kills 4 people/year)! There were so many funny teams: variations of More Cowbell, Never Nudes (from Arrested Development), Swine Flu Survivors, etc. Then there were some teams that were just kind of weird...one went around during the first leg with a bullhorn handing out chocolate milk (why?) Anyway, some just had funny sayings on their van:
Also, as Matt mentioned, we used porta-pottys like they were going out of style! They had a ton set up at each exchange:
(How gross is it that they are called Honey Buckets?!?!?! Sick!)

Here's our support van at one of our stops waiting for a runner...it looks like a GMC ad, doesn't it?
So Matt & Rob (the 2 men in our van) had some really hard legs during the relay. Here's Matt coming in after his first run...which left him so dirty that even after bleaching the shirt...it's still dirty!
(Notice the people he passed in the background? Go Matt!)

Here is a pic of us doing a water trade during Matt's last run:

I wasn't paying attention after I handed him this water bottle and almost smacked right into the mailbox...graceful Audrey! :)

At the end of the relay, you wait for your last runner at the last 1/8 of a mile. Since the Ragnar has 600 teams running, you have to shuttle in from the Park City Resort. Here's what we looked like on the shuttle:
It was pouring, so we were soaking wet! Here is the rest of our van shuttling in:
From the left: Kim, Paula, Rob, Soleil :)

Here's our end of the relay Van 1 team picture:

Dana was our last runner, so for our team run at the end, we all wore boxers with our team name (Got Meds?) and dressed as patients in hospital gowns:

Then Dana wore a doctor's long white coat and we chased her in our hospital gowns to the finish line:

In the end, we were dirty, soaking wet, sleep deprived and very sore...we loved it and will be back next year:
Ooooo and they give you snazzy metals at the end that can double as bottle openers :)

YAY! WE MADE IT!

Run. Drive. Sleep? Repeat: Ragnar Relay Part 1

We finished.

We're exhausted.

And my legs feel like a cross between a rubber chicken and a dead fish...

But everyone is ready to sign up again next year.

Over the course of 30 hours, 12 runners ran 188 miles. In the process we rocked out to the finest music the 1980s have to offer, ate our weight in snickers and cliff bars, danced on the side of dirt roads surrounded by mountains, bathed with baby wipes, became intimately familiar with porta-potties, got blisters the size of golf balls, popped said blisters, slept in a high school gym, ran under the stars, cheered on everyone that ran by, ate McDonald's (twice), took a lot of ibuprofen, told jokes, had complementary massages, drank free chocolate milk, and sprayed febreze on shoes, clothes, bags, pillows and each other.

Suffice to say, it was an amazing time and we'll be attempting to chronicle the entire experience. We've got a ton of pictures, some grainy video footage, and crazy memories that already seem surreal.

It's hard to know where to begin, so I better start with our alarm clock.

Friday morning it started blaring at 4 am. We made coffee, showered and drove to Paula and Rob's house. Once there we loaded up their Acadia with running shoes, changes of clothes, food, water, pillows, and sleeping bags. The car was stuffed, luckily they had a roof-top box and a cooler-hitch for their trailer. Look at our mountain of running shoes!


I should mention that Paula (a 2nd year resident) and Rob have 4 kids. Their 15 year old daughter Soleil (pronounced like "Cirque du Soleil") ran with us (she's a high school cross country runner) and the other three participated in decorating our vehicle with window markers the night before the race. Here's one view:


Here's another:


They wrote all our name's on various locations.


And didn't forget to prominently display our team name.


We then drove about 90 minutes to Logan Utah where the race was set to begin. Our team of 12 runners was split between two vehicles and being in van #1, we started the race at 7:30. The start times were staggered every 10 minutes, with approximately 15 teams beginning at each interval. Here is the registration area.


This is the starting line (notice the clock on top).


Here's Audrey, Paula, and Soleil at the start. They look ready to rock!


Our first runner, Kim, is getting mentally prepared to run. It was about 50 degrees when she started running.


Kim stretching with 7 minutes to go!


The second runner on our team was my beautiful wife, Kim's portion took us out of the city of Logan and into the country. Here's Audrey getting ready with Paula and Soleil looking on.


This is part of her course, pretty nice view. Most of the race took place on back roads, meaning there was minimal traffic (other than race support vehicles) and tons of beautiful scenery.


While each runner ran their leg, the rest of us would drive the van ahead a few miles and stop to offer encouragement and H2O to the person currently on the course. Here's Paula driving the van.


Here's Audrey finishing her first leg, she ran the 6.7 Miles in about an hour (10 minutes faster than her projection, we were barely ready for her at the hand off). I had no idea I was marrying such a stud athlete! And although she was tired, check out the big smile on her face.


Here's a video of me delivering water to Rob while he was on the course. Even though it was only 10 am, the temperature was approaching 75 degrees and the sun was blazing. Rob's first leg had him running more than 5 miles without a glimpse of shade. Thankfully he slowed down during the water stop so I could run alongside him in my flip flops.

This is what Rob got to look at while running (do you want to come visit us yet?)



I think I've sufficiently wet your "Ragnar appetite", Audrey will be posting more pics and video soon. Today we are going to rest and relax, we start our residency orientation this week (and even get paid for being there!) and are going to need all the energy we can muster.

Ragnar Tomorrow

For those of you that don't know, we are running the Wasatch Back Ragnar Relay starting tomorrow morning (Friday) at 7:30. We'll be getting up at 4 a.m. (gross) to drive 2 hours north to Logan Utah where the race begins. Here's a description from the race website:

"Think of it as a 188-mile party with 12 best friends. Teams of 12 will rock out to live bands, enjoy the wacky participant costumes, and make life-long friends with teammates and competitors. Teams will party along the backside of the beautiful Wasatch Mountains from Logan (85 miles north of Salt Lake City) to Park City, Utah (15 miles east of Salt Lake City)."

It should take us approximately 30 hours to complete, so by 1 p.m. local time Saturday we should be pretty exhausted and super hungry. Not to worry, we'll have our camera with us at all times and will be posting pics (and maybe video) by the end of the weekend.

Here's a pretty good youtube video to explain the whole experience.



We've been training for months and are super pumped to start, we'll be running the race with 10 other people from our residency program and are hoping to make it into a yearly tradition. Wish us luck!!!

We Graduated!

We fell a little behind on blogging while in Michigan, and a few friends have asked...

Yep, it's official. We're done with medical school and are now officially doctors :) Here's our favorite picture from the big day (notice the hoods...how cool is that?):

Photo credit - Doug Davey :)

Living in Utah

The wife and I have officially moved into our apartment in Utah, but since we're still in the "setting up" mode you'll have to wait a little while longer for pics of our new digs. In order to tide you over take a look at the sweet view through our living room window.


You're probably feeling a bit jealous after seeing that, but don't forget that we've got a guest bedroom with your name on it and would love to have visitors.

When we got to Salt Lake City last weekend we expected it to be hot and dry (this is how everyone has described the summer weather), but since we've been here it's been unseasonably cold and wet. Here's a stormy picture of the mountains from our balcony.


There have been thunderstorms here everyday and there are more in the forecast for the next week. Who knew we were actually moving to Washington state? On the bright side, our good friends Sylvana and Matt sent us a graduation present that came in the mail yesterday.


I'm going to carry mine with me at all times since patients never seem to believe that I'm old enough to have graduated from college (let alone medical school). Hopefully a novelty mug will be proof enough.

Well that's it for now, we'll have pictures from inside the apartment as soon as we get the place looking presentable.

We're On Our Way To Utah...

We started our move to Utah today! Yesterday we packed up a Uhaul at Nana's with Doug (Matt's dad):

(Ryan, as you can see, we packed your skis well...)

Then, we drove the Uhaul to an ABF loading center...to reload everything into one of their trucks:


After that, we drove to Jackson to spend the night, pack the Civic, and begin our trek to Salt Lake City. This morning, Doug & Alta saw us off:
We were sad to leave but excited to begin our new life as a married couple...on a road trip to our first home:



Along the way, we had some subway:
Then, we stopped at a rest stop:
And now we're in Omaha for the night...exhausted...so we're going to bed:

Goodnight!