Last fall we were invited by some friends to do the Ragnar Relay. It goes from Logan to Park City (about 200 miles). We were crazy enough to say yes and then wondered why we had the whole time we were training. We called ourselves the Thunder Cats and had some tshirts made with our logo and then on the back all the cities and towns we ran through. All 12 of us (six couples) took 3 legs of the race each. Mine was 13 miles total and Jimmy's was 18. I trained with a friend in the neighborhood, Aimee, and that was one of my favorite parts of the experience. I enjoyed visiting with her as we would run. Jimmy trained by himself and with Road Runner (Andrew, beep, beep) and Giraffe (Richard).
We had two SUV's we used. We were in the first group. I had the third leg and Jimmy had the 6th. We started at 5 am and we had to get there about an hour early. CRAZY! It was COLD and WINDY! At this point, I was wondering what I had gotten myself into! My first run was almost 5 miles and it was my most uphill. I made it through that one with pretty nice weather. I wondered how I was going to do it 2 more times though. We didn't sleep well the night before and I was tired!
I took a pen and wrote on my forearm, BUSTING IT FOR BLAKE! I decided to think about him during my next two runs and have him help me make it through. My second run was in the heat of the day. It was about 5 pm and there wasn't any shade in my run. There was no wind (I could have used some of that 5 am coolness) just hot asphalt under my feet and no shade. I was hot and tired.
While I was trudging along, feeling a bit discouraged I would keep looking down at my arm. I was thinking about Blake and a Lonestar Song Came on my Ipod, I'm Already There. During these lyrics a breeze came and blew through my hair. I felt like Blake was there with me, helping me along.
I'm already there
Take a look aroundI'm the sunshine in your hair
I'm the shadow on the ground
I'm the whisper in the wind
I'm your imaginary friend
And I know, I'm in your prayers
Oh I'm already there
That was my hardest run and I made it! Thanks for your help, Blake!
Jimmy had a really hard second run too! (He also wrote that on his arm) It was 8 miles and all uphill, some of it really steep uphill. He was amazing the whole time though and had a bounce to his run like he wasn't even tired. It seemed like his leg just kept on going FOREVER. He had tons of road kill (that's when you pass people). I mostly got road killed on my runs. :)
We went to a high school after his run and had a hot meal of spaghetti (tasted amazing) and showered (in luke warm showers- it was awful) And then we went into the dark gym and found a place on the wrestling mats to sleep (or at least try to sleep for an hour or two until our turn to run again. I was able to doze off for a bit, I had white noise playing on my ipod to drowned out the commotion.
It was about 3 am when we got started with our last leg. It was cold out again. I started my run a little before 5. It was dark still but just showing signs of the sun getting ready to come up over the mountain. This last leg was my easiest. (thank goodness) Deanna's was her hardest right before me (7 miles and much of it was uphill). I got to go back down the hill. :) The sun came over the mountain while I was running and it was beautiful. It was about 4 miles. It was a great run for me, until the end. It showed me ending on the road on our map but instead it had me go up a dirt hill at the end for about 1/2 a mile. It was the longest 1/2 mile ever!!
But I did it! And then Jimmy ran his easiest leg too. ( I say easy but 4 miles isn't so easy when you've had no sleep and already ran 14 miles) Now we just needed to wait for our team to finish off their legs too. We went along with them for the next couple legs and cheered on Giraffe (Richard) and Road Runner (Andrew). They had their hard legs at the end. And they were straight uphill- and did amazing. Richard was sick for the whole thing and had ran 10 miles through the middle of the night. He was a delirious after.
We went to breakfast with our SUV group (we always called it van though because that's what everyone calls the two groups. Van 1 and Van 2) at a sit down place and felt like falling asleep at the table. (I think Brain did for a bit) Then we went to the Park City High School and waited for our last runner, Sharlynn, to come in. We would run with her on the track to the finish line as a team. What a great feeling of accomplishment I had as we ran as a team through the Ragnar tunnel.
I was inspired by my memories of Blake, by Jimmy, and by my teammates. We finished in 31 hours.
We signed up to do it again next year with our team the very next week. Now we are thinking... What did we get ourselves into again?
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