It’s been a minute since I’ve been able to post one of these…8 months’ worth of minutes to be exact. I’m going to just do one post for all three states though as this was an event called the Bear Lake Trifecta. It’s a smaller event that seems designed to help people trying to work on the 50 states goal to get several states in a short period of time. My sister Andrea suggested it and it didn’t take much to convince me to give it a try. But I don’t have a history of making good choices…

We got into Salt Lake City on Wednesday and grabbed our bags. I saw something I’ve never seen before at a baggage claim…

Then we headed to grab some food before picking up our race packets. Lunch was a poke bowl at Slapfish, a concept I had never eaten at before. So good!

The first race was a half marathon in St. Charles, Idaho. The course description of gently rolling hills was a bit of an understatement. There were also some “run for your life because a semi is coming around the turn and you’re on an open road” moments. And I didn’t realize how high of an altitude we were at. Higher than Denver! I was sucking wind within the first mile. At least it was pretty. I also met a lot of other 50 staters so was a bit too social and ran slower than I wanted. Oh well.

After the race we ate at this roadside joint called Ruca’s. They served Aebelskivers- a fluffy danish pancake ball. I had never had one so of course had to order. I got the Razzle Dazzle- the area is famous for their fresh raspberries. Delicious.

We then went back to Logan, UT where we were staying for the trip and explored the area. Half the fun of travel is finding great new places to eat and dinner was at a place called CupBop. I was happy I packed my tums because holy heartburn. Tasty though!

The second race was in Cokeville, Wyoming. We had to get up fairly early for the start at 7am (long drive). This course was also hilly, and hot, but I performed better because I wasn’t as chatty and knew more of what to expect. It was also beautiful and there were cattle everywhere. They had to stop the full marathon at one point because they were herding cattle across the road, and then they left….treats behind. I ended up getting 2nd in my age group which was neat.

The best part though was after the race when I visited a local gas station and found my favorite candy – chewy sprees! I literally bought all 18 bags that they had. They’ve been very hard to find recently and I needed to stock up.

We then discovered another delicious local pizza joint called Summit Pizza that served these cheese roll things. They were called cheese doodles and they were phenomenal.

Day 3. Ugh. I woke up tired. My legs and feet were sore. The final race was in Garden City, Utah. Another absolutely beautiful area. The course tricked me though. It started off flat and I thought, okay, I can do this. Then at mile 3 it showed it’s true personality. Hilly AF is how I would describe it. And then we hit mile 5 and discovered that this race was actually a trail run.

To be fair, the trail part was in a sense easier because I was concentrating so hard on not tripping and falling face-first into a cow pie that the time passed quickly. But I certainly felt it. This race took the longest and I was absolutely beaten up when I was done. But I did it. 3 half marathons in 3 days in 3 states. We celebrated with a trip to LaBeau’s and had one of their famous raspberry shakes.

So was it worth it? Yeah, but it hurt. It’s tough doing races like that back to back. I’m happy to be moving closer to my goal though. It’s been stagnant for a while and this was a solid push forward. Training starts next month for the NYC Marathon so I’ve got plenty of running to do.