An Easy 178...

This past weekend was the Ragnar Wasatch Back Relay. This is a 12-person, 178 mile relay from Logan to Park City. I was invited to be on a team by Geoff's cousin, Laura. The team was mostly made up by some form of family, but also had a few friends, too.

I started training again a few months ago for racing. I hadn't done any races in a year and was ready to get back into it. My training wasn't as consistent as it should have been because of all the stuff we had going on, but I figured I could just force my way through it. Boy was I wrong!! The lack of training, moving, and being sick made this race a lot harder then I thought it would be.

Our teams start time was 11:00 am. We got to the start line about 30 minutes early, and had enough time to check in and watch some other teams start. Finally, it was our teams turn. Geoff's cousin Spencer ran our first leg - and he did awesome. I was runner #5 which meant I ran legs 5, 17, and 29. Watching everyone else go before me, seeing how easy it looked for them, and knowing I had a very hard 7.4 uphill run coming, I couldn't help but be very nervous.

After a few hours of waiting, it came to my turn. Laura handed the baton off to me, and I took off. The Ragnar Relay classified my run as a Very Hard leg - but failed to mention that it was uphill on a DIRT trail. The first 2 miles went pretty good. Then, the 95 degree temperature got to me. I couldn't keep up my pace and ended up walking. This was the most frustrating part to me - I hate not being able to do something. I alternated walking and running for the rest of the leg, and what seemed like an eternity later, I finished.

We had one more runner, then handed off to the 2nd van. We waited for a few hours while van 2 ran their legs, then it was our turn again. The first 4 runners from my van ran their legs and did great. It was then my turn for my second leg. This leg was rated as a Moderate leg and was 5.9 miles long. I started running around midnight and was determined to not have the same problems as earlier in the day. During the race, the van you're in drives ahead and waits for your to give you water, then drives a little farther and waits. During my 2nd leg, I told them to go 2 miles. Everything was going good, so I was planning on telling them to just keep going. Well, there was a mix up and I didn't see them until about 3/4 of a mile until the end of my leg. It wasn't that big of a deal, except I didn't want to finish and have them not be there. But everything worked out ok.

After our last runner, we handed off to Van 2 again and headed to the middle school up there to sleep. We rolled our sleeping bags out and slept on the grass for 2 1/2 hours. It felt so good to sleep, but made it very hard to get up. We then headed off to start our final legs. Despite injuries and illnesses we were all able to run our legs - which was good because I don't think any of us could have run anyone elses leg! My third one was rated as Very Hard -even though it was mostly a steep downhill. I think I was more nervous for this leg then any others. Every race that I have run that has a steep downhill has been a challenge for me - I seem to always get really bad side aches that don't go away. This run was nothing different. About 10 steps into my run I got sharp pain on both sides of my ribs. I ran as long as I could like this, but ended up walking about a mile of the 4.1 mile run.

We made our last exchange with van 2 and headed to Park City to wait at the finish line. A few hours later our team finished. We ran the 178 miles in 31:39:18 . The race was so much fun!! I am so glad I was able to do it. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done, and maybe I'm a little crazy, but I would LOVE to do it again...in fact, I'm already putting together my team for next year!!!