RAGNAR - Wasatch Back Relay

188 miles...28 hours and 15 minutes
We met our team mates at the starting line about 20 minutes before the race started. Mom and Amberly dropped us off there.
Monica, Me, Pepper, Sam, Adolfo and Rich...for the next 28+ hours we would be stuck together in a van...I am so ready to start this adventure.

Here is Rich's first run. He did this leg last year so he knew just what to expect.

He started running at 8:10am and we loaded up our stuff into the van and we were off to follow Rich along the course and give him water.
He finished really fast in about 33 minutes. The sky was blue and it was looking like it was going to be a beautiful day!! Rich passed off the slap bracelet to Pepper and it was his turn.

Here is my first run.

Pepper was fast and had a pretty steep hill to run up...I was impressed. I was ready to go and was glad that it was still pretty early in the day so it wasn't TOO hot yet.

I took a bit longer than I wanted to, I averaged 11 minute miles and this was only my first run so I was pretty disappointed. My Mom and Amberly had to get back home (all the kids were there) so they left after I finished running.

Monica was after me so I slapped the bracelet on her wrist and it was her turn.
She made a friend towards the end of her run. This dog came out of nowhere and decided to run beside her for a minute. She ran really great and it was getting pretty hot!!!
I really enjoyed being able to see parts of Utah that I have never seen...it was beautiful!
Adolfo and Sam finished their runs and we ended up in Liberty where we passed the bracelet to Van 2 and it was their turn to run for a while. We made sandwiches and ate in the church parking lot. Then we headed up to Snowbird to hang out and wait for Van 2 to finish so we could start running again.
Snowbasin is a beautiful place. The lodge was really nice and we had indoor toilets. Too bad that they stopped flushing...people would come out of the bathroom and just give you that look like, "I am really sorry" the port-a-potties were actually all really clean and not too gross!!

After we spent about an hour or so sitting out in the sunshine and watching the people go by it was time for Rich to start running again.
Last year when he did this leg he FLEW down the hill but he hurt his knee pretty bad so he said he was going to take it easy this year...yeah right!!!

It was really hot for Rich so we stopped about every mile to give him a drink.
I think his part of the run was SO PRETTY. The sky was bright blue and there were a few puffy white clouds in the sky. I really enjoyed the scenery in this canyon. It was pretty hot though and I was starting to dread my next run.
Here is the van. We all took turns getting out and giving people water. I was busy taking pictures so I got out almost every time. No one wanted to give Rich water because you had to run with him so you could get the water back when he was done and he is hard to keep up with.
We finally figured out a better way. Monica would walk up a little way and wait for him, she gave him the water and then when he passed me he just handed it back...it worked out nicely!!!

This is right before my second run. I am so glad that Rich and I were able to have this experience together.

I am not going to lie, I was not looking forward to this next run...it ended up even worse than I had imagined.
See all those people behind me...well they all passed me and so did alot of other people. It was HOT and I was miserable.
Rich gave me some water and it was HOT, I was like "are you kidding me, I am out here boiling and you bring me hot water?" I was pretty mad and I think I yelled at him.
He also kept telling me that I was half way there and then he would tell me only 2 miles left etc. etc. I guess he thought that would help but it made me SO MAD. I was running along thinking that I was soon going to be done but I just had to keep going and going.
FINALLY...
this is what I had been waiting for!!! I had a huge rock in my shoe so when I saw I was on my last mile I thought I would hurry and take off my shoe to get it out. When I put my shoe back on and started going again I could feel that I had a blister and it was hurting BAD. I thought, "I am not going to walk the last mile and be out here for another half hour." I took off my shoes and just kept going. It actually felt alot better running in my socks. I tucked my shoes under my arm and was focused on the finish line. I did get alot of sympathy honks along the way. When I came in site of the finish line I could see everyone looking at me like I was crazy but WHO CARES...I was done and that was all that mattered!!!


Here is Sam sporting his headlamp. I was really glad that all my runs took place in day light so I never had to wear this.

After we all finished our second leg we were off to find the high school where we were going to eat dinner, shower and take a short nap. It took us quite a while to find it and we were all starving by the time we got there.
It was supposed to be and all-you-can-eat spaghetti dinner. We paid $6 a person and got a plate of spaghetti a piece of bread and a store bought peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Very disappointing...Rich had been talking about how good the dinner was last year and so we were all really looking forward to it and it was a big let down. Then we had to pay $3 for a shower. Monica and I paid and went inside and all we could see was "tree showers" no private showers and we were mad!! Some ladies were in there not really worried about being butt naked and others had on some of their clothes but were still washing off. We decided to just go in with our sports bras and shorts and get as clean as we could...it did feel really good to be clean and was well worth the money.
We got ready for bed and we were looking forward to getting a few hours of sleep. It was already after midnight.
Rich looks like he is dead but that is how he always sleeps.
Adolfo was really tired and I am pretty sure my flash woke him up...sorry!!
Sam decided to sleep in the van, I guess the thought of sleeping in the gym on wrestling mats with 300 other people wasn't very appealing to him.
Yes, we have 6 people on our team and there are only pictures of 5...what happened to Pepper??? That is the million dollar question!!

Here is the story...Van 2 said they would be finished around 5:00am so we had our alarms set for 4:00am so we could get up and get to the exchange. I heard Rich's phone ringing and he was sleeping so I answered it. It was only 2 something in the morning but it was Van 2 and they were almost finished!! We got up, after less than 2 hours sleep (plus it was nearly impossible to even go to sleep with all those people) put away our sleeping bags and went to wake up the others. We got Adolfo and Sam was already in the van but where was Pepper??? We thought Rich and Adolfo knew since they were all tucked in when we got back from our shower but they had NO IDEA where he was. No one had his phone number so we called Van 2 and they gave us his number. We called and it went straight to voice mail which means his phone was dead or it was turned off. No way to get ahold of him. We went back into the dark gym and tried to look around for him but we had no luck. Meanwhile Van 2 is calling every 5 minutes saying we need to be there to meet them. So we loaded up and left Pepper at the high school to fend for himself. We would just have to run our last leg and then go back to find him. We were "Pepper-less" and we all felt really bad about it but what could we do???

This was supposed to be my run but I made Rich do it because it looked way to hard and it wasn't what I signed up for (they changed some of the routes a few weeks before the race).
He was excited to be able to finish the race with a challenge. It was really dark when he started.
Pictures don't turn out that great in the pitch dark.
But it started to get light as he was running and it was beautiful. We watched the sunrise and then the clouds started rolling in and we knew we were going to get wet at some point during the day!!

This was a great way to finish the race for me!!
I got some "moleskin" from the first aid people to put on my blister (basically my whole pinky toe was a blister) it helped a ton and I felt pretty good running. It was early morning and it was cool. I was glad though it was only 2 and a half miles.

Sam took Pepper's leg (he did two) and once we were done running we headed back to the high school to pick him up. He was happy to see us and we were glad to have him back in our van. We were all really glad that we were done running because it started raining. We went to Heber City and ate breakfast at The Hub. It was great to have good food even though the wait was really long!!!

We got the call from Van 2 that it was time to meet them at the finish line so we headed to Park City. There wasn't enough parking for each team to have both vans at the finish line so we had to park and shuttle over. We parked and saw the shuttle then it left so we stood in line...in the rain. We waited for what seemed like forever and no sign of the shuttle and the rain started to get harder and we were getting drenched. We decided to just take our chances and try to park at the finish line.
We made it just in time but had to run to catch up to Van 2 and we all ran, soaking wet across the finish line. We finished in 28 hours and 15 minutes (our pace time said we were supposed to finish in 26 hours) but we were all pretty happy with our finish time.
We posed for a quick photo and then said our good-byes to Van 2 (we barely even saw them the whole race) and headed back to Provo. I was a little disappointed that we couldn't hang around the finish line and talk with our other team members etc. but it was just too rainy and cold!!!

Monica had her car in Provo so when we got there we cleaned out the van and said good bye to our new relay friends. Rich slept the whole way home and I dozed for a while too. Thanks for driving us home safely Monica!!!


Here is our "Rag Swag" or in other words our souveniers. The medal was pretty sweet but the shirts are pretty thin and white so they are see through but I guess it will do!!!

This is an experience that I will never forget. It was full of all sorts of different emotions and it is for sure something that I want to do again!! Thanks for the memories everyone!!!