Testing the Limit

Van 2 for the Wasatch Back

Friday June 20th has been on my calendar for many months and was a day I was looking forward to and dreading in equal amounts. I was looking forward to running with my friends and dreading being the slowest. I was anticipating a lot of fun and camaraderie and dreading running on no sleep. I was eager to see what I could do and how far I could go and dreading the unknown. I learned that I'm not afraid of sweat, exhaustion, or hills and I learned that I can push my limit!

The Wasatch Back Ragnar Relay is a 180 mile relay race from Logan to Park City, UT. Each team has 12 runners who each run 3 different legs throughout the race. The team has 2 vans with 6 runners each and they leapfrog each other over the course to have runners at each of the 35 exchange points along the way.

It was awesome, brutal, but awesome.

I was runner #7, the first runner from our van at every major exchange point. Van #1 started at 8:20 ish in the morning in Logan and we just met them at our first exchange point in Liberty. I am a morning runner--during the school year I'm home by 7:00am ish and during the summer home by 8:00 in time for Brian to leave for work. So starting at 2:00 in the afternoon in 94 degree heat (I swear it was 100 on the road) was a new experience. Those first 4 miles were HOT! But then they were over and I only had 2 legs and 8 miles left to go!!

Our team name was Legs, Breasts, Wings and our car decorations: an enormous bra, pink wings and stuffed nylon legs complete with running shoes garnered a lot of attention along the course. It made for some fun camaraderie and funny comments along the road.

After all six of us had run we passed the "baton" back to Van #1 at Snowbasin and headed to the lodge for massages, ICE cold showers and FOOD! And then we hit the road so we could be at the next exchange point.

I started Leg #2 at East Canyon State Park at about 11:15. It was a little scary to accept the baton from Kelli and take off into the darkness with my little headlamp all by my lonesome. And then after about a mile it was awesome! Other relay cars (and much to my dismay too many runners) passed often enough that it wasn't complete solitude, and yet it was. With no i-pod and only the sound of my own breathing it was by far my favorite leg. My husband (who is the greatest) met us that night to shadow the nighttime runners. He and his friend lit the road for us with their bike lights and carried our water bottles. He was about 25 minutes to late for my run but he shadowed each of the others and let our Van just be at the next stop catnapping until they came in. Now that is true love!! After we finally passed the baton off to Van #1 at Rockport Reservoir around 4:30 am we headed in to Heber for "bed".

After a quick $2 shower (worth every penny) we crashed literally on to the wrestling mats laid out in the gym at 5:45 and had about 2 hours of sleep until we got the call that it was time to go again.

Leg #3 was the hardest for me, I started around 9:00 so it wasn't to hot yet, but I went from feeling like I had totally fresh legs the first 1/2 mile to "just keep running, just keep running" for the last 2 miles. I was exhausted! But then I got back in the car and got to cheer everyone on the rest of the race. It was incredible to watch my friends run. I knew how tired I was on my flat route and to watch them run hills and perservere was inspiring!

We crossed the finish line together 30 hours, 24 minutes and 34 seconds after our start! A third place finish for our women-sub-masters category. And we're signed up already for next year...anyone wanna run?