Slackersauce

I hope I can remember all of my thoughts. Prepare for a long blog. If you don't want to read a long blog, I suggest you leave this page immediately. :)

My friend Chris asked me to join her Ragnar team a few months ago. I have been asked to join other teams in the past and have always declined for various reasons. One being, I think this is an expensive race. {I understand now why that is} But I agreed as a "favor" to my friend. 

I was runner 11. My first run was a 3.2 miles straight up the canyon to SnowBasin ski resort. I knew it would be steep but AYE CARAMBA! It was so steep. I managed to run the first 1.5 before I ran out of steam. Then I decided to do the 30 seconds running 30 seconds walking thing..that lasted awhile and slowly turned into 10 second intervals. :) Then I decided it was almost quicker to walk with big strides swinging my arms in an enthusiastic manner. That seemed to speed me up so I did that in btwn running. It was tough. But only 3 miles total so I knew the end was in sight soon and leg one would be checked off my list. It turned out to be the perfect way to start my Ragnar experience bc in comparison, everything after that seemed better/easier.

Runner 12 took the second half of that hill and finished at the resort. Then it was time to turn it over to our other van for their 2nd runs. We went down into Ogden and ate pizza for dinner and hung out until about 9:30 that evening where we would start up again.

My run started at 3:30 in the morning and was 5.5 miles around Rockport reservoir. This run was my favorite. I loved everything about it. The cool air, the almost full moon, the moonshine on the lake, the beautiful scenery. We had a cabin in Oakley when I was growing up so we spend a lot of time at Rockport when I was younger. So I was having flashbacks of great memories while running this. I didn't care how fast I was running it, although I ended up doing pretty well considering it was the middle of the night..but that's not the point. The point is, I didn't care. I just enjoyed every minute of it. I soaked it all in and just thought happy thoughts. This run could have lasted a lot longer and I would have been perfectly content.

About an hour after this run however, I started to feel pretty sick. Nauseous & tired. I kept having to find POP's and that is never fun. I could feel the effects of no sleep wearing heavily on me and I wondered at that point if I was ever going to feel good enough to run again in a few hours. After our 12th runner finished we drove to the Jr. High School in Heber that was allowing runners to crash there and use showers for the price of $5.00. At that point, I was willing to pay $20.00. We went into a big lunch room where they had laid down gymnast mats and turned the lights off. I set up my sleeping bag, layed down and was out cold for an hour and half. Then I woke up, went into the showers where I just stood under it. I never washed myself bc I couldn't find my soap etc. {well I could have, but I was too lazy to at that point} But it felt good to just let the water run on me for a minute. I put on clean clothes and felt somewhat better. I still needed to eat and the thought of that was making me sick. I forced down a bagel with peanut butter, a banana and some grapes. Pounded a bunch of water and drank my first diet coke since I had been there. After all of that had taken affect about an hour later, I finally felt better. We were off again..Our teams turn. When its your teams turn to run, the time flies by. You let them out, drive ahead 2 or 3 miles, wait, give them what they need and then pull up again however far your runner wants you to go. So It seems to go by quickly.

This is the one where two of the people from our team would run up "the Ragnar hill" {guardsmans pass} It was soo steep and crazy. I felt like it deserved the respect of being the finish line run. But I guess they couldn't fit all the people and cars up there so that's why you finish in Park City? I don't know. Just my guess. But at the exchange just before this climb I saw Stacie and Jeff & their team. They started way after us and had not only caught up to us but totally beat us too. I knew this would happen. I was in a van with two non-runners, two aerobics instructors and two runners. So the chances of us being pretty slow were great. Which was fine. I expected it so it wasn't a surprise or anything. But it was SO good to see them. Jeff was running the same legs as me so we kept texting each other throughout the relay..He was making me laugh my head off with his description of our runs. Stacie had some hard runs too and she actually texted a swear word to me describing her run. Which made me laugh so hard bc Stacie doesn't use profanity ever. We just kept laughing about how ridiculous this all was.

My third and final run was on the backside of the pass. It was 7.3 miles of what the map said would be all downhill aside from a little up at the beginning. Turned out they tricked us. I call it a trick bc It seemed mean to do to us at that point. It was a few miles up with a few quick downs and then a super duper steep downhill. I was cruising! But only bc I had no choice with the gravity! It was crazy steep. Then we turned around a corner and there was a sign that said 'this way vans' {which was downhill} and 'this way runners' which was a steep uphill. I knew at the beginning of this run that my body had had it. I was fighting this one. I thought I was all pumped up and ready to go until I started to run and suddenly I felt the exhaustion of hardly any sleep. So needless to say when I saw that next hill, I wanted to punch someone. At the top of it, there was a volunteer and I said to him "any more surprises??" he laughed and assured me there wasn't. I thought I had a rock in my shoe from that steep downhill part so I stopped for a quick second at the water station and took my shoe off to shake it out. When I started running again I realized it wasn't a rock. It was my skin. Something was wrong. It felt as though a big chunk of my skin on my heel had been sheared off from the downhill impact. I just kept running and thought it would be a bloody mess when I was done. I ran past an older man and he said to me "running downhill isn't all its cracked up to be." It made me giggle. Still even so, I was so grateful to be running downhill at that point. My body could not have handled any more climbing. And besides that, it was a beautiful run. When I got done, I took off my shoe and saw that I had a blister forming about an inch in diameter all the way around. So no blood, but a big blister. It was tender against my shoe so I had to keep my shoe off the rest of the time. HOW grateful I was that this happened at the END of it all.

When I was done, we went straight over to the buses that shuttled us to finish line so we could all cross it as a team with our 12th runner. We waited quite awhile. I guess that run wasn't what was on the map either. A few "tricks" that ended up taking her longer than anticipated. But its okay. We hung out and talked to our other van and enjoyed the chaotic scene. Then we finally ran across the finish line together. I hobbled with one shoe on and one off.  Took some pictures and went home. I was so ready to come home at this point. Stick a fork in me bc I was done.

Overall my thoughts on the Ragnar relay..there is nothing like it. It is its very own event and I think every runner should experience it at least once. They were very well organized. The runs were comical to me bc these are runs I would never sign up to do by choice. What I mean by that is, I would never register to do a 5k straight up a mountain..but very glad I have experienced it. Nor would I ever choose to do 5.5 around a lake at 3:30 in the morning. But extremely grateful that I have. And I would never say 'hey, lets go run 7.3 straight downhill and rip our muscles and feet apart doing it!" But again, happy I did it. So I think the Ragnar is something that gives you opportunity to do something you would never otherwise choose to do on your own and there is satisfaction in that. I do have to wonder though if I had different runs if my thoughts wouldn't be as positive on this whole experience. I was happy I wasn't running around neighborhoods like some of the legs, I was happy I wasn't running under freeway viaducts in the middle of the night like some runners were. I was grateful I had the runs I had bc although difficult, they were all set beautifully in a mountain somewhere. 

I saw many people puking. I ran by a deer and a snake. I saw people being taken in ambulances including one of my team members in the other van. I saw a sunset and a sunrise without any sleep in between. I saw many funny team names and creatively decorated vans. Including a lit up Christmas reindeer on top of a van. I saw many interesting costumes. I got a really cute charcoal gray new running shirt. And a very big medal that is also a bottle opener. And a cool fake tattoo of the Ragnar symbol that I secretly wish would stay on longer than it will.  It was perfect beautiful weather and an overall fabulous experience.