Ragnar Relay/Wasatch Back/Legalized Torture

Legalized and personally payed for, torture.

After many months of training, this past weekend, I participated in the Wasatch Back. It is a relay run from Logan to Park City. 188 miles total. There are two vans with six runners in each. You have twelve runners on your team and each of you have 3 legs of the race. The legs vary in difficulty from 'easy' to 'very hard'. I was #8.

My first and second legs went pretty well. I ran faster than I normally do.

At the exchange point for my second leg, I saw my 5th grade teacher announcing as the runners came in. He totally remembered me. It's been about 15 years since 5th grade so I thought that was pretty impressive. Hahaha. Random. I actually enjoyed this run because it was downhill and at night.

At 3am, after everyone had run their second leg, we slept in a middle school, in the gym on the very hard mats. Needless to say, very little sleeping was accomplished and a good 3 hours later we were up getting ready to start the torture all over again. Really? Really. REALLY.

This was probably the hardest run for me. It was 6 miles at a gradual incline. In the first ten minutes, it was over for me. I hurt. I hurt so bad. At this point, the only thing left was brain power. Freaking 60 minutes left and all I have is a fight in my head keeping me going. Some lady totally collapsed with about a mile to go, in front of me. That would suck. Seriously. You only have a mile to go and you are done? But if she would have seen the 'happy' little hill that awaited her just a few minutes more I think she would have been glad she collapsed.  I let some expletives fly when I saw that stinker hill coming up. It took me a little over 70 minutes to finish this leg and I've never been happier to be done with something in my life. It felt like the end of a marathon.

       Our ride for the run. I hated it. If I ever do this again, I will only do it if we have a 15 passenger van.

The sleeping arrangements. This pic does not even do it justice. There weren't a ton of people when we came in but when we woke up it was packed. It made me feel like I was in some movie where there had been some disaster and you had to sleep in middle school gyms on hard uncomfortable mats. You could only go to the bathroom in port-o-potties and finding a real bathroom/shower was a luxury. The only food you had was granola, almonds, craisins, beef jerky, and water. This movie sucks.

Right after our 3 hours sleep/nap. I told everyone to look pretty when I took this pic. This is pretty.

Carrie coming in after her last leg!

Paul stretching.

And possibly the best pic ever of yours truly. Yikes!

Roman conquering the Ragnar. Hardest leg of the whole race and all up hill for 4 miles. Killer.

Oh wait. No. This is possibly the best pic ever. Haha. Makes you want to cry you're laughing so hard right now. Huh. Or it just makes you want to cry.

THE team. Roman's Legion. THE END!

New development with Kelsie. She's loving sticking her tongue out. Randomly. Maybe she is just taking out a step. Instead of opening up her mouth and sticking something on her tongue to taste it she'll just leave her tongue out all the time. So efficient, that little girl. Genius really.

P.S. I really need to give Chad a big THANK YOU for watching the little stinker all of Friday and Saturday.
He even took Friday off for me to run it! What a good husband! I think I may owe him a weekend away.