Ragnar Snowbasin

So in April my friend Brenda got me to join her Ragnar Trail team down in Zion National Park. I wrote about it here. I loved it so much, when I got an email promoting Ragnar Trail Snowbasin I jumped at it. I knew a couple girls in my ward had wanted to do it so I figured finding a team wouldn't be too difficult, so I signed myself up. I was completely wrong about finding a team. It was SO hard. Emma was going to be out of town, Sam broke his thumb, Steph's family was going to be in town, Dave didn't have the money, Jeremy would be out of the country, Randy couldn't get work off, blah blah blah. So with four weeks to go I had four people: Leslie, Jerika, Jarom and me.
During my training I fell pretty hard and was out for about a week. That didn't help my confidence in the whole experience.

Slowly, but surely I added people to my team. Jentrie, who just finished a marathon and Russ, who did Ragnar Zion in April. But with just two weeks left I still needed two people, so I did what we do. I put it up on facebook. I was surprised when my friend Tim from college commented and said he'd do it. I hadn't seen him in 9 years! And my final team member was solidified the Saturday before. Luckily Aubrey had been training for a half marathon she has in September. Sadly I missed the deadline to change our team name so we were Name in Progress. Luckily we weren't the only ones with a name like that.

Friday afternoon I left work and picked up Aubrey and then we headed to pick up Tim. I got to meet his wife, (since we've been facebook friends for years but had never actually met) and then we headed up to Snowbasin. We got there around 1 and got checked in. Then we were off to set-up camp. The side of a mountain.

Aubrey, Tim and I got the tents set up and not long after Jerika, Jentrie, and Jarom got there. 

Then it was time to get ready to run. Our start time was 2:30 so we didn't have long to wait. It was pretty warm, so staying hydrated was a big priority. Lucky for us (or so I thought) we were close to the bathrooms. They were pretty nice bathrooms, but at 2 a.m. the slamming doors was NOT very convenient.
Jerika was our first runner and it was cool to actually be there for her to run under the arch, since I missed that part at the Zion race.

 I was the fourth runner so I had a while to wait. I was grateful Jarom had brought a canopy for us to sit under while we waited. It was fun to chat with everyone and get to know people a little bit better. Tim was our resident relationship expert (since he was the only married person and the only guy who was really around all the time).
My first leg was the green. That first mile hike up the hill was a killer. Then the trail split and there was another hill to climb. After that second hill it was a great trail. Lots of shade and very pretty. I was glad I had taken water with me since it was still pretty warm and there was a lot of dust which was scratchy on my throat.

 My second leg of the race was at about 3 in the morning. I tried to sleep, but it just wasn't working so I sat in a camp chair and watched the moon for a while. My second leg was the red trail. It had a 1200 foot elevation gain in two miles. I felt like I was climbing that mountain forever. I couldn't really see where I was, but I was pretty sure if I went much farther I'd be able to see Ogden on the other side. I finally got to the downhill, only to discover it was pretty steep. With not too much light, it was hard to run down. Gravity wanted to help me out, but since I couldn't see I was fighting gravity the whole way down. When I finished my back hurt pretty bad. Luckily they had left a foam roller out on the grass, so I took advantage of that to try and help ease the ache. I lost a toenail Monday night. I blame the beating my feet got from the red trail.

I got about 3 hours of sleep from 4 a.m. to 7, but then the sun was up and people were out and about so trying to sleep anymore wasn't really going to happen.

Tim coming in from his first leg, the yellow trail.

Russ finishing his first leg.

Jentrie finishing her last leg of the race.

 The trails were much steeper and rockier than the Zion run and it took us longer than I anticipated. My last run was the yellow trail at about 11. It was already really hot and it was the longest trail. It of course started out with the mile hike and continued gaining for a while, but then it was just rolling hills. I did manage to fall on this trail. Two of the other girls also fell on this one. I fell just after the water station where they had sprayed me down so I got pretty dirty, but only came out with a small scratch and a bruise. I really enjoyed the yellow trail and am still debating whether I liked it, or the green better.

 We didn't get too much sleep so Aubrey found a cool spot to wait for our last runners to finish. These are the benches in the girls bathroom in the lodge.

Tim watching the screens for our runner to come in.

Waiting for Leslie to come in to switch for the last leg.

Leslie finishing strong.

Our sad little running bib. It got ripped on the second leg. By the 9th leg it was hanging in there just barely. I'm not sure when they taped it. Obviously the tape didn't last on the one side. And the buckle broke around leg 12ish so we were tying it around us. We recycled the poor thing when we were done.

The drive home was long. We dropped Tim off and then headed to Draper. We stopped and got some dinner and I could hardly focus on what Aubrey was saying. I dropped her off and then headed for Provo. I just got more and more tired and when I hit construction at Lehi, I wanted to cry. I had been debating whether or not I would stay up and work on my lesson, but there was no way I'd be able to do anything productive. I got home just before 8 p.m. and was asleep by 8:15.
Sunday morning I was up at 5:30 to shower and work on my lesson. Church started at 8:30 and I had a hard time focusing on things. The nice thing about 8:30 church is that you have a long time to nap afterward and nap I did. Monday was still a challenge to try and focus, but by Tuesday I think I had mostly recovered on sleep.

This was definitely a more challenging course, but I'm glad I did it. I don't plan on ever being team captain again, but I'm up for being on someone else's team anytime. I'm really grateful for the support of my team and the good time we had.