In it for the Sticker!

We did it! We got our stickers!!!  Darrik and I ran the Ragnar this year.  The Ragnar Relay is teams of 12 people running from Logan to Park City.  Each person has 3 different legs they run. Most run about 15 - 20 miles total.  CRAZY! We had so much fun. Darrik ran leg 6 and I ran leg 3.  We both ran about 18 miles each. I will definitely be doing it again.  It was so worth it, and I got my sticker. You know what I'm talking about. THE sticker. This sticker:

On the cars of those who have ran the relay race. It's a very coveted prize.  It was awesome, which sounds ridiculous because how can running 18 miles on no sleep be fun? But it was.

We met at Brooke's house at 6 the night before for a pasta party, to decorate the vans and load up our stuff.

After all the fun and getting Brock off to my mom and dad's to watch him for a few days we got home and didn't get to bed until about midnight.  We then had to meet at Brooke's at 3:00 am to drive up to Logan.  So we got about 3 hours of sleep.

Our team started in Logan at 5:20 am.  We were supposed to start at 11:30 originally, but we got it switched and I'm glad because we finished a lot earlier.

This was at the starting line.  Crazy to see so many people up so early to run.

I was third to run, so I started around 8 am.  This run was 5.6 miles.  It was gorgeous running through Logan, or Hyrum I guess.  It was the perfect temperature. I was so scared before this run.  Like diarrhea sick, but it was totally fine. Not scary at all.  I just psych myself out. It really was a blast.  I kept thinking to myself as I was running how blessed I am to live here.  It's so amazing.  It's been raining so much lately that everything was so green and beautiful.  I love to run outdoors in nature.  I can't even explain it.  It's like a drug. I'm totally addicted to it. 

I have a system that I stick to when I'm running.  I always run for 10 minutes and walk for 1 minute. This is how I keep my endurance and gain my speed.  I did this with each of my runs and felt like it helped me a ton.  I never quit, I kept running until the end.  I hope to get faster, though. That is one of my goals.

 

Here we are together in the car. I'm so glad we were able to do this together. I really like that we share some of the same hobbies an goals.  It makes it that much more fun.

Darrik's first run, 6.9 miles, was the 2nd part of Avon Pass, the downhill part. If you are familiar with Avon Pass you know that it is a dirt trail. Very hot and extremely dusty.  We stopped twice to give him water and after our second water break he apparently took off running down the hill.  We sat in our car for a little while, and then drove up a bit to find him and give him more water, but we never passed him again. We thought we did so we were waiting on the side of the road, to wait for him to pass again, like leap frog you know, and he never ran past us.  I was getting worried wondering if he had gotten hurt, or if something bad had happened.  We couldn't believe he wasn't coming.  After a good while I got a phone call from a member in our group asking where we were? What do you mean? We're waiting for Darrik.  He's down here at the exchange point... WHAT? HOW?  And our team couldn't keep running because we had their bags and flags and stuff.  So we wasted about 45 min.  I felt so bad we had missed him. He said once he was going down hill he just ran full speed. Let gravity take it's course.  Crazy kid.

Look at my boy go! He's wicked fast.

 And here's the bunny??? Seriously there was a man in a bunny suit running.What a weirdo! It was so hot.

My second run, 4.9 miles, was in Morgan and it started around 6 pm.  It was still relatively hot, but not unbearable.  Morgan is very pretty.  I had my water pouch and ipod and didn't need a lot the first run, but the second run was much hotter than my first.  I was glad that there was another van driving by me, they kept giving me water and encouragement in between my vans support.  It helped out a lot.

Darrik's second run, 8.1 miles, was another tough one.  Darrik had to run up East Canyon Reservoir.  This is mostly up hill.  He did such an awesome job.  We were chanting and singing for him all the way up.  He walked a little bit, but was a trooper.  He really is a great runner.  He's been in Kansas and has trained a little bit, but mostly on flat ground.  So he was doing so good considering his circumstances.

The scenery from Logan to Park City is amazing. I was lucky to run when it was light enough to see, but not mid day so it wasn't unbearable to run.  My last run, my 7.8 mile run, was by far my favorite. It was the hardest, and I was in the most pain, 4 different silver dollar sized blisters, shin splints, and knee pains, but it was so beautiful. I ran along Jordanelle Dam. I loved it.  I also loved my run through Morgan, but it was pretty hot. I don't really remember much about my first run other than it felt good to be out there, and it wasn't as scary as I thought it would be.

 No idea what I'm doing, but apparently I'm exited!?!

Darrik did awesome! Which I had no doubts. He is a runner.  Not that he has ran his whole life, or even trained a lot for this, but if you look at him you can tell, he's a runner.  His first two runs were very hard and his last one was easy.  It was 3.1 miles and basically flat.  He did it in about 23 minutes.  Mr. Speedy Gonzales.

 Up at the Canyons after we finished our last legs. Don't we look happy?  You should have seen us try to walk, we were so sore. ha ha ha. So funny.

We actually didn't see much of van two, just at the major exchanges and at the end. I wish we could have seen them more.  It kind of felt like they had their team and we had ours. I didn't like that. 

Crossing the finish line with our whole team.

 

 

 In front of the Ragnar van with our whole team. So cool!!

 I got plenty of battle wounds, blisters, shin splints, black toenails, etc.  But it was so worth it.  Is it bad that I want to get a tattoo of the Ragnar symbol on my calf now? I'm seriously contemplating this.

 I LOVE RAGNAR!!

THE END