We finished our first Ragnar Relay race! Brian and I ran with some friends from AZ plus his brother Jared from
Utah. We had SUCH a good time. But I'm not sure how prepared I was-I had to run 7 miles down hill, then seven hours later, and at midnight I ran 8 miles uphill....at least I got a break and only had to run 3 miles through town in the pouring RAIN on Saturday. Brian didn't have it any easier....He first ran an easy 3.5 miles. Then around 4am he ran 9.6 miles! And Saturday...his leg may have only been 3.6 miles but it was literally STRAIGHT up a mountain!(gaining 1450 feet elevation!)
We had a girl van and a boy van. We were TERRIBLE at taking pics also. I got some video of the first 6 exchanges, but forgot to pass the cameras off to the boys. AND, we NEVER once got a pic of our entire team together. Oh well, that's really my only regret.
Here's a summary(yet super long!) of the experience:I was runner 6 in the first van. So I got to watch everyone do their legs before it came to mine. They all were so different. Some had huge hills, some ran through town, some needed water more than others....anyway, Melissa was runner 5 and her leg was in my opinion the WORST one. It was over 8 miles long-UPHILL on a
whinedy dirt (DUSTY) road. She had some trees for shade and what not, but it was brutal. It took us over 30
mins to even DRIVE her route, and we were not aloud to stop, so we only saw her once, around mile 4, and could give her a quick drink. Anyway, she was running up the mountain, and my leg was to run down the mountain. I had no idea what to expect for mine, and the anticipation was killing me! This however ended up being my favorite leg! The first 4 miles were STEEP downhill(switchbacks). On a super rocky dirt road. It was so downhill that if I had wanted to stop, I couldn't have-I was going way too fast and concentrating SO hard on where my feet were stepping so I wouldn't roll an ankle. I'm usually a bird watcher as I run, just in la la land checking out the scenery. But seriously, if I took my eyes off this road for one second, I would have biffed it in the rocks. Once down the mountain the road turned to pavement and the last 3 miles seemed like they took forever since my mind was now calm and somewhat bored. (i.e. running downhill switchbacks is the way to go!)
The only thing I didn't realize at the time was how SORE my thighs and butt were going to be from that downhill run. My legs were basically doing "
quickfeet-football" run the entire 4 miles.
The thing I remember the most about my night run was being nervous! It was SO dark outside. They had completely shut down the little middle of nowhere highway so there was no cars, no lights, NOTHING. There was two male runners close by me at the start and I was trying SO hard to run as fast as they were....Because when I turned around, I couldn't see a single headlamp in the distance. Once we were passed all the farms and I couldn't hear the cattle ramming gates and what not, I got less nervous and could just enjoy my quiet, lonely, somewhat boring night run. About an hour into it, I had less than two miles to go, and the clock on my
ipod read straight up midnight. The hill in front of me looked SO ginormous and endless. I convinced myself I needed a break. SO, I walked...for over 4 straight minutes. I had only ran more than an hour one time before this. (well two times counting earlier that day when I ran for 1 hr and 4
mins) Anyway, after my break I was good to go again and still made it in good time.
As I came in I saw the boys at the finish line, but couldn't find where the girls for a while. I had a few sips of Brian's water while looking, but then once we met up and started driving I forgot to drink more water. It was 40 degrees outside (forgot to mention that one!) and so I wasn't too thirsty anyway. We drove about 45
mins down to Melissa's Mom's cabin to get some sleep in some BEDS. When we got there, it was locked! (it was a indoor-condo place and the front entrance was locked-with no one at the desk) Well, we finally got in, found the keys at the desk and headed up the elevator. I got instantly sick from the motion and grabbed the envelope that the room keys had been in, and totally started to throw up. I ran to the room, found a bathroom and puked some more... I'm pretty sure it was from no water and I hadn't eaten since dinnertime 7 hrs earlier. I hopped right into the shower, cleaned off, and drank lots of water. I had one foot into bed, just about to hit the pillow-the clock read 3am.....then
BAM, the FIRE ALARM went off!! In the entire place. It was so loud you had to cover your ears. They couldn't shut it off....After 20 or so minutes the Firemen came...Turns out the steam from my teammates shower had set off a faulty alarm. They had to rip the whole thing out of the ceiling to get the dang alarm to shut off! 42
mins...that's how long it lasted....it was definitely something to laugh about. Jen somehow stayed in bed and was able to get a little rest from it.
We slept til 7am! Three hours instead of the 4 we had planned on, but still, more than most people! It felt good to head out on the road again knowing we each only had ONE more leg to run. It was pretty hard to walk normal-my legs were SO sore, I wondered how I could possibly run on them! It was pretty sunny that morning, but sure enough, just as I was getting ready to run the rain started coming. At about mile 2 it was really coming down hard. I just ran through some neighborhoods in
Heber, and even had to wait for teh crosswalk on main street to get across. As I got to the exchange point I was a little confused at the look on all the girls faces-they looked ticked! Then I notice....Darren is not there....the boys were LATE! I had to stand there in the rain for over 4 minutes. It wasn't that bad, but it had all the wives pretty ticked at their lazy husbands for a while.
Hah. They had been at the condo sleeping and showering also, and just left late.
The rest of the day was relaxing...the boys van went up and over the mountain and then ran down under the ski lifts into Park City. Matt was the last runner and it was
SOSOSOSO cold and HAILING on him as he finished the race for us. We got our medals and headed out of there. (oh yeah, we all got a FREE massage while we waited for him also!- it was SO needed!)
It was so much fun. BUT, I don't think I could sign up for the Wasatch Back Ragnar ever again knowing how many mountains we had to go up and down! We're going to do the LA one next year and I hear that one should be cake; comparatively speaking. We'll see....but I'm sure it'll be a fun time either way!
P.S. Don't ask what our time was....we were there for fun! It was somewhere around 33 hours I think....188 miles... Only one of our teammates was a seasoned runner, and she was 4 months pregnant and running strong!
