The infamous Lotoja

Justin trained for this all freakin summer. He and his friend, Chris Hardy worked so hard to gear up for the 2 man relay they did. Last year Justin and his group came in with a time of about 12 hours, this year they did it in 10:42!! Woo hoo! I was impressed because Justin had a busy summer and worked everyday from 6 am-2 pm and did a lot of traveling with me. Chris and his wife, Emily had a baby boy in June and he studied for the LSAT in the meantime. Finally, the day came and they were ready.

We stayed up in Logan, UT with Justin's cousins. They were across the street from the starting line. Justin's brother, Josh also did the Lotoja, but in a 5 man relay. It was fun to see everyone! I was the support crew for their relay, lazily named "Team Supercool" at the last minute for lack of better ideas.

The first leg, from Logan to Preston, ID was a breeze for Justin as he got in a really good draft group. However, right before Justin pulled in, Chris asked to borrow my car keys, then realized Justin was coming in and took off with my keys. It took me 90 seconds to realize what had happened and Justin sped off in an effort to catch him. He never caught up to Chris. The whole time I was praying Chris would remember he had the keys. Nope. So I got a call from a neutral support car telling me to find someone to break into our Subaru (luckily I had spare keys in the car!!) 30 minutes later a policeman broke into our car, and off we sped to reach Chris in time in Montpieller, ID. We BARELY made it.

In Montpiellier I asked, "Hey Chris, mind if I have my keys back??" It took 2 seconds to dawn on him what had happened. He looked horrified! But nonetheless, we made it on time and got the keys successfully. Just goes to show you that sometimes you ask God to give you Halibut, and he gives you Trout. It's still fish, just a different kind than you thought you were gonna get. Thus it was with the key fiasco.

Chris went on from Montpiellier to Afton, WY. He took all the major climbs because he rides like a madman on the hills, but can't keep up on the straightaways. Justin took it from there all the way to Jackson Hole. He just rode his hardest on the flats and drafted off whomever he could. Nothing major occured from there on out. There were some nasty crashes near Preston and Star Valley, but all in all they rode really well.


Ten hours and 42 minutes later Justin crossed the finish line and his big day was over!! We drove home straight after that (after a dinner with the meanest latina server I've ever experienced who refused to split our checks and told one of our riders she would only split them for us because he spoke spanish, and was therefore educated... freakin piece of work, that woman, I pity the man she bosses around all night). So at 3:00 am Justin and I collapsed on our bed and fell asleep. Yay!!