check this race off the list

(I am posting this both here and over at The Moon House. For my two loyal readers who check both blogs, my apologies for the repetition!)

We came, we saw, we...um, finished? I'm not quite ready to use the word conquered. Oh, what the heck. We conquered! I can happily report completing the Wasatch Back this past weekend. And finishing is something indeed. What an adventure!

There is so much I could describe from the experience. Running in a Ragnar Relay is certainly something you have to do to appreciate it. And now I can say I've done it.

Would I do it again? If the opportunity presents itself... ABSOLUTELY!

The night before the relay we met as a team for some oh-so-tasty carb loading pot luck, and then took some very silly pictures in our Wonder Women attire. After worrying for weeks about running in this race, particularly doubting my ability to do so because of a running injury, I was finally starting to be excited about the race. Come what may, we were definitely running this thing, and that felt good.

The next morning we packed up the car, put our Wonder Women decorations in place, and made our way to Logan to begin the journey.

I'm not sure how well my running contributed to the overall accomplishment of our team, but I certainly had fun designing and putting together the car decorations for both cars on our team. Part of the culture of these relays is in the team spirit each team accomplishes. Everyone decorates their vans, and most teams have some sort of costume or coordinated running gear. Our team was a little over the top...I thought...until I saw some of the other teams out there. We were actually so tame by comparison!

Our start time was at 11:30, and for the next day and a half the 12 women who made up the Wonder Women team did their best to get us all to that glorious finish line in Park City. Imagine. 6 women in one van. The first runner begins, and we cheer. YAY! We drive a little farther down the road to cheer her on and giver her water. And we cheer. YAY! We do this two, three, sometimes five or six times during one runner's leg, depending on how far they have to run. Then we go to the exchange point, runner one give her slap bracelet to runner two. We cheer. YAY!

And then we do it all over again...18 times! We ran in the heat We ran in the middle of the night. We slept in the car, on the grass at Snow Basin, in the hallway of some school in some town...I honestly don't even know where we were, only that it was somewhere in Utah. I was just so happy to get a full 3 HOURS of sleep! Wahoooooooo! I felt like a new woman (okay, not really...I was still exhausted)!

My first leg of the race was my hardest...7.4 miles up Avon Pass. Before I even started, my pulled muscle - or whatever it is that has happened to my leg - was killing me, so I was kind of disappointed before even starting because I knew it would be impossible to run as fast as I once had during training. However, I really feel like I was blessed to be able to run and feel well. I made it up to the top with a time not too far from my training times. I was completely spent by the end of this race, but it felt AWESOME to have accomplished it. I even got 5 kills! (That means I passed 5 people on my trek...I know, amazing, right?)

My next two runs were only 4 and 3 miles respectively. They were actually my hardest because my leg injury had gotten the best of me. Nevertheless, I didn't walk, and I didn't stop. I just kept running...slower than I would have liked...but I kept running. Every woman on our team is a hero to me because we all fought so hard to run our best and stay positive. I got to know the women in our van better, and it was a delight to spend that time and share that experience with them.

By the time we cleaned up after our last leg (Thanks Bunderson's for letting us crash your cabin!), dressed up in our costumes, and made our way to Park City, we were all a little on the loopy side. I consider myself an expert in sleep deprivation. But this was taking it to an entirely other level!

I don't have any pictures that turned out of our group waiting at the finish line. The man I asked to take those pictures was a little wobbly with the camera, so they are just big blurs. But, imagine all of us striking a Wonder Woman pose and creating a tunnel with our arms for our last runner to pass through before we followed her to the finish line.

Was it exhausting? Yes. Was it just a touch crazy? Yes. Were there times in the middle of the night with a headlamp strapped to my head out on a dark road all alone that I asked myself, "What the @#%& am I doing?" Um, Yeah. Was it one of my most fun, memorable experiences. Yes indeed!