Ran the Logan to Park City (190ish mile) Ragnar relay race this past weekend. Our van (half of our 12-person team, "Shay's Team") included fabulous team captains Shay & Michelle, Shay's brother Braden & wife Savannah, Tonya, and me. We decorated the van with window chalk and crepe paper. Out of the thousands of decked-out vehicles we saw, only one other had crepe paper. I think we must've missed the "don't be white trash" memo. Meh.
Michelle & Shay tie-dyed these shirts for all of us. I love mine and will probably live out the rest of the summer in it. Even on laundry day. Don't ask how that'll work...I'll figure it out.
Rules of Ragnar: if you get outside the van, you have to hold the orange flag. (I saw one guy peeing on the side of the road...and I only noticed him BECAUSE of the orange flag. Surely that would be an exception to the rule?) From 7:30 p.m. until 6:30 a.m. you have to wear a reflective vest at all times while outside of the van. 'Cept Tonya and I didn't sleep in our vests, even though we slept in sleeping bags in the middle of a grassy field OUT of the van. I know. Rebels.
A slap bracelet is the "baton" for the relay. Tonya was runner 5 and I was runner 6, so she always passed it to me, along with my GPS watch we were sharing. We were super cut-throat competitors, as you can see in the uberswift transaction above (top left). Some of the roads were also dusty (especially Tonya's route up Avon Pass), made dustier by all the vans driving through to "leapfrog" their runners and cheer them on. We tried to cheer our runners every 1.5 to 3 miles...after we totally messed up with our first runner super-Shay and pretty much left him to run the 7 miles solo. We didn't know! We're rookies! Still...lame.
Know what else is lame? Me, accidentally honking very nearby to some horses trot-walking along the road that our runner was on. In my defense, I was honking to cheer on Michelle. In the horses' defense, I'm a loser and just plumb forgot they were there. So. I apologized, the horse-riding lady chewed me out, so I figure in the grand scheme of things we're even.
For my particular routes, one was about 7 miles mostly a moderately steep downhill, one was a little over 8 miles mostly a mild to moderate uphill, and one was a nice lolling neither-up-nor-down 3-mile jaunt through town. The second run was a bear for me (who wants to run up a mountain at 1 a.m.? one-two-three NOT IT).
It was such a great experience. The guys in my van were/are awesome, and we had a lot of fun. If I do it again, I'm going to train better. And NOT try to eat an enormous hamburger, pile o' fries, and oreo shake right after finishing. Sounds like a heavenly idea, right? I thought so too. Until I actually did it...
Thanks Shay, Michelle, Tonya, Savannah, & Braden! You guys are awesome. No seriously. Long live De Agony of De Feet.
6 comments:
This sounds fun. I wish I had enough friends to do a nice relay.
Ragnar= a race i will never understand. I wish I could run that far though, even in the dirt & at night up hills. You're a hero. the dirt teeth are gross though.
Cute post! You're so funny! At least you didn't try to pass up a blind woman like me. :) We did really good- did you see the results? We got 72 out of 700 or something in our division and 2nd in Logan? Whoot whoot!
I'm so impressed with you all! Way to go.
someday i will be cool like you guys and do this. someday! oh...ella was so super excited that she was able to help decorate the van. she told me all about it in primary. cutie-patootie.
I want to run this race so bad! I was all signed up for the 2010 race... but moved away a little early :( I love that you did this with Tonya. Awesome. You are awesome.
Post a Comment