Ragnar 2013

Ragnar. It was hard. Trail running is not for sissies. Pretty sure my training was far far far from what it should have been. They should have told us we needed to find a beach, that's also a hill a mile high and just run up it a million times. Anyway, we planned to leave Friday morning at 8. We may have left not on time and then we stopped for lunch longer than we should have.

We were suppose to be there at 12:30 to check in and our start time was 2:30. We pulled in to park the truck at about 1:30 and then we had to wait for a tram to pick us up and ALL OF OUR CRAP and take us to the campground.

Charlie was our first runner, so we finally got all our stuff sent Charlie to the start line and he barely had time to ask for a wrist band when they started our heat. Off he went on the green trail. 3.5 miles. I was up next so I grabbed my running gear and headed for the bathroom while everyone else transported our stuff to our camp site. Darn! I wasn't there to help carry it all. I wasn't ready very long before I had to get to the start/finish line and wait for Charlie to come in for my leg of the race. He made good time and handed the timing chip off to me and then I was off to the yellow trail. 3 p.m.  4 miles. 83 degrees. gained 400 feet in a mile. That's about the same incline that stairs have. And I didn't drink much water before I got there and didn't take any with me. FAIL. Needless to say the yellow trail was my least favorite. I pretty much hated it a whole bunch. Didn't make awful time, all things considered, handed off to Kyna for the red trail and then went to camp to find some fluid. After I got some Gatorade and water I felt pretty darn good.
Camp was an interesting site. Just lots and lots and lots of tents everywhere.

We had three tents tucked in with a whole bunch of other people. We'd wait a round for a while until we got to the estimated time we thought the runner would be coming in and then we'd walk over to cheer them on as they came to the finish. I didn't run my next leg of the race until 11:00 p.m. I had the green trail. 3.5 miles in the nice cool darkness. I had a head lamp, but I didn't love it. There was a full moon and for most of it, that was enough. I had a couple stumbles, but didn't actually go down until around mile 2.5 on a very flat road of soft sand, I didn't see a little rock, tripped and ended up on my back staring up at the moon. After laying there for a few seconds, I got up and continued on. I kind of wish someone on my team had been there to witness it. I thought it was hilarious and I'm sure they would have enjoyed it as well. Ran the last half mile, up those lame sauce switch backs that every trail ended in, like a boss and finished in pretty good time. LOVED the green trail. Went to camp, changed my clothes, ate a granola bar and went to bed. Probably not my greatest plan, but I was tired.
Woke up around 6-ish and got ready for my last leg of the race. The long red trail, 7.5 miles. Cheered Charlie in as he finished his last leg and then left on mine with the sun just starting to peak over the horizon. The temps were awesome and the trail was beautiful. Our team volunteer was at the water station and it was great to have someone I knew cheering for me AND give me some food since I failed to eat anything and was super hungry. Came in somewhat strong and got some food first thing. Took it right out of my teammates hand. It felt so good to be done! Back to camp to eat and sit around, getting up occasionally to go cheer a teammate on as they came in. Poor Brenda and Jarom. They had the worst times for running. They both had to run their first two in the dark and their last one in the heat. :/ They ran it like champs though. I had it pretty good, all things considered.
I started getting pretty sore after that and headed to get a massage. That helped a bit, but it wasn't too good. We all put on our awesome shirts we made and went to wait for Jarom to come in for the team finish. We all ran in together and were just so happy to be finished.

Dinner that night was entertaining. We were all so tired we were saying all kinds of crazy things. Brenda was really struggling to put a sentence together and we all laughed pretty hard. The burgers were also ENORMOUS and it was quite the sight to watch us try and eat them.

I slept really good Saturday night. The only hitch was my 1:30 wake up for the bathroom and then when I got back to the tent I found out that the guy in the tent next to us snores. REALLY LOUD. Puts my dad's snoring to shame. I had to dig around in my stuff to find some ear plugs so I could actually go back to sleep.
My legs felt better Sunday morning. I got up and got ready and then we packed up camp and headed out.

We made it to church just outside of Zion National Park and then we went and hiked around a bit in the park.

It was a great trip and a fun race and I'd definitely do it again.I had a great team and we made some fun memories. Our inside jokes give me a good laugh at random times throughout the day and I'm grateful for the new friends I made.