Talk about supporting each other through the night—nobody does it better than the night owls and morning people in the Sawtooth Relay!
Two Wood River Valley six-member teams won their respective divisions Saturday, June 8 at the end of the 62-mile, 12-leg Sawtooth Relay race from Stanley to Ketchum.
Nearly 1,800 people, mostly from Idaho, enjoyed mild and dry late-spring weather during the 2013 event that started in the dead of night in the scenic mountain town of Stanley.
Recently, the event’s final results were released online and this article is a summary of those results and the efforts of all the supportive teams.
Among locals, winning first place in the Masters Women category was Team Spice Queens and first place in the Corporate category went to Team Mo’Lasses.
Spice Queens, who finished in 10 hours, 1 minute and 20 seconds, consisted of captain Heidi Smith of Kamuela, Hawaii (formerly of Ketchum), Kelly Martin and Lucy Bourret, both of Ketchum, Teresa McGoffin of Hailey, Anne Jeffery of Bellevue and Elizabeth Caldwell of Murray, Utah.
Team Mo’Lasses, representing the Sawtooth National Forest, posted a finishing time of 8.25:01, good for 25th place overall and 34 minutes faster than the next-best team in its class. The team consisted of captain Carol Brown, Dave Fluetsch and Matt Phillips of Hailey, Amy Ando and Josh Switzer of Ketchum, and Susan James of Stanley.
Blaine County also produced one of the event’s fastest times when the Idaho Ice Track Club placed third among 51 teams in Men’s Open and 14th overall in 7.55:00. On the team were Lane Kirkland and Jamie Morey Jr. of Carey, Brady Campbell of Hailey, Stephen Marx of Idaho Falls, and Carson Campbell and Todd Campbell of Weston.
There were 296 teams in 10 divisions finishing the 22nd annual Sawtooth Relay. It was a fundraiser for the Polycystic Kidney Disease Foundation and the Idaho Donor Network.
The top three overall teams were RWA (Runners with Attitude) in 6.32:49 in Men’s Open (well behind the 5-year-old team record of 5.52:03), followed by Herdegen’s Army 6.39:58 in High School Boys (5th place all time in the class) and Had a Good Time 6.44:26 in Men’s Open.
Also making the podium with a strong 8.26:36 third-place Women’s Open finish for 26th overall was Zenergy/Velocio with Mollie Holt of Hailey, Georgie Montgomery of Hailey, captain Yvette Hubbard of Ketchum, Maggie Howard of Ketchum, Stephanie Olson of Ketchum and Heather Miller of Sun Valley.
They were followed by the fourth-place Women’s Open team named Namaste Bitches (8.32:10, 31st overall) with Lily Hansen, Jamie Guzile, Abby Siebert, Tiffany Larson, Erin Finnegan and Heather Miller.
The Wood River Valley actually placed four teams in the top 16 of the 84-team Women’s Open class.
In 12th place was Rock Out with Your Socks Out (9.11:16, 68th place) with Molly Meyers, Joanna Bradley, Pia Shivdasani, Molly Elshire, Jennifer Wonder and Leah O’Flynn. In 16th place was Moving Boxes (9.17:00, 81st place) featuring Shawn Myers, Joanna Peters, Meg Monday, Angela Grant, Karly Maratea and Lynn Jones of Meridian.
Other local teams and their runners were:
Team Spitfire (Coed Open) with Casey Kraft, Nicole Kashino, Caitlin Hardie, Jennifer Helms, John McLaughlin and Dana Snell of Meridian;
E-Lemon Ators (Coed Open) with Cyndi Ochoa, Cristian Ochoa, Liliana Almaras, Pedro Gonzalez, Raul Arkosi and Daniela Arkosi;
Scotties (Corporate) with Cyndy Garvin, Angela Shetler, Cali Duke, Karen Bulls, Cara Shumate and Tiffany Berger;
Team Sweetwater (Men’s Open) with Jose Ruiz, Karen Province, Alejandra Silva, Gary Parson, Girardo Juarez and Arturo Ruiz.
Last and certainly not least among the local teams was the appropriately-named Turtle Wins the Race! boasting Cara Drougas, Ceisha Judd, Jody Stanislaw, Alex Monge, Mike Jones and Mary Fauth. They started in Stanley at 2:45 a.m. and finished 10.56:10 later in 235th place overall, for 87th of 114 teams in Coed Open.
They comprised a collective team quote of the experience. It was: “I saw a rabbit, an antelope, an eagle, a van full of nice tutus and at dawn, the birds were louder than my music.”
Most of the Sawtooth Relay participants were team members, but there were four intrepid runners who finished as individuals on the 62-mile course from Stanley to Ketchum’s Atkinson Park.
First-time overall winner was Matt Frey in 10:20.09, a pace of 10:01 per mile but far off the individual course record of 8.44:27 (8:27 per mile) set by Chris Lundberg in 2011.
The women’s winner was 55-year-old Alice Schenk of Rupert (11.09:21), who shattered by 1 hour, 41 minutes and 32 seconds the previous course record she set in winning last year’s individual title in 12.50:53.
A runner for 42 years, Schenk is planning to join 7,600 others at the start line with hopes of finishing for her 10th St. George (Utah) Marathon Oct. 5 and thus qualifying for the 118th Boston Marathon in 2014. Schenk also ran Boston in 1981, 1996 and 2000.
Next year’s Sawtooth Relay is set for June 14, 2014.
Here are top results by class, including the 12 local teams that had three or more participants from the Wood River Valley, according to race director Terry Hoebelheinrich.
Most of the team rosters listed above came from Hoebelheinrich’s pre-race registration list, so there might have been a few last-minute runner substitutions that changed the make-up of the listed teams:
l Solo runners (4 finishers): 1—Matt Frey (188th overall) 10.20:09. 2—Alice Schenk 11.09:21 (245th overall). 3—David Wright 12.01:13 (274th overall). 4—Charles Francisco 13.45:25 (299th overall).
l Men’s Open (51 teams): 1—Los Tigres 7.02:47 (6th overall). 3—Idaho Ice Track Club 7.55:00 (14th overall) 32—Team Sweetwater 9.43:17 (128th overall).
l Women’s Open (84 teams): 1—Girls Heart Rockets 7.37:41 (8th overall). 3—Zenergy/Velocio 8.26:36 (26th overall). 4—Namaste Bitches 8.32:10 (31st overall). 12—Rock Out with Your Socks Out 9.11:16 (68th overall). 16—Moving Boxes 9.17:00 (81st overall).
l Coed Open (114 teams): 1—2 X 6=Too Fast 7.47:26 (12th overall). 11—Team Spitfire 8.43:35 (39th overall). 19— E-Lemon Ators 9.06:27 (59th overall). 87—Turtle Wins the Race! 10.56:10 (235th overall).
l Corporate (21 teams): 1—Mo’ Lasses 8.25:01 (25th overall). 6—Scotties 9.17:22 (82nd overall).
l Masters Men (9 teams): 1—Standard Mosier Ventures 7.54:49 (13th overall).
l Masters Women (4 teams): 1—Spice Queens 10.01:20 (162nd overall).
l Masters Coed (7 teams): 1—Ready or Not 9.27:22 (100th overall).
l High School Boys (2 teams): 1—Keenyan 6.58:24 (4th overall).
l High School Girls (3 teams): 1—Lovely Little Lady Bugs 7.40:40 (9th overall), which was a new class record.
l High School Coed (1 team): 1—Red Suburban 10.05:41 (169th overall).
