Wasatch Back... I Think I Have Officially Gone CRAZY!

Last Friday and Saturday I ran the Wasatch Back Ragnar Relay. This race starts in Logan, UT and takes you winding through the Wasatch Mountains for 180 miles to Park City. Yep, that's right 180 miles. We are crazy! I did this race with some of my girlfriends and we had SO MUCH FUN! I loved all of the girls on our team. It was so much fun to spend so much time with them. I felt like we were in 7th grade again having a sleep over in a car. We had a great time together. In this race you run 3-6 legs over a 24-36 hour time period. It took our team about 28 hours to finish. You try to sleep in a car when you aren't running but it doesn't really work. Each team always has someone running. The other runners are in a car following their runner. There are exchange points where you tag off and the next runner starts. Each leg is between 3 and 8 miles long and most are up hill.

Every team has a theme and usually decorates their car to match their theme. Some of the team themes were Running on Poo Pains, Hannah Montana (this was a car full of 25-30 year old men), Wasatch Baby Got Back, ASSphalt Kickers (they had plastic butts all over their car), Nacho Libre (they ran the entire race in spandex, capes and wigs), but my favorite was a Monty Python and the Holy Grail team. We were pulled over at 4 in the morning trying to get a couple of minutes of sleep in and we heard what we thought was a horse running by our car. We were really confused so we all got up and turned on lights. This is my favorite, there was no horse but there was a Monty Python runner clicking coconuts together while he ran. That made the whole race worth doing. That seriously made my night. I love that movie so they won my vote for the best themed team. They kept in character the entire race and I loved it.

This race was the most physically challenging thing I have ever done. I was completely exhausted by the end. I got no sleep and we didn't have very much food. We know to be more prepared next year because we were all pretty hungry. This race is in the middle of nowhere so there aren't any restaurants. Besides being hungry and tired we were all very hot. It got above 90 degrees during the day. Luckily we had a water gun that we sprayed each other with. I was the finishing runner and my run was the only trail run in the entire race. I had a five miler that should have been pretty easy. It was a low but steady uphill run. I ran into a couple of problems though. My team wasn't able to follow me to spray me or hand me water so I had no liquids while running uphill in 94 degree heat. About 2 miles into the run I made a wrong turn with 2 other runners from other teams. Some stupid mean person flipped one of the direction signs. We went about a half mile in the wrong direction before realizing it and having to find the right way again. I could have killed that person. I was really flustered and starting to feel pretty fatigued. Because of this I wasn't picking my feet very far off the ground and I tripped and ate it. It was so hard to get up and finish. I was so hot and so tired but I had a team to finish for so I sucked it up and did it. I was so happy to finish. I was purely exhausted. I have never felt that way before and I hope next year something is different because that last leg was NOT FUN! All in all the race was a blast. I loved it and I can't wait for next year. I hope to make this a tradition and do it every year for a long time. I told Josh that we need to get pregnant right now so we can have the baby in time for me to do the Wasatch Back next year. He said no.

Here are all of the girls that were in our car, we had Bunny, Jenny, me, Shelly, Heather, and Lindsay.

This is me doing a cartwheel on my first leg, there were no cartwheels done in my last leg.

Heather not looking so excited to be running 5 miles at 3 am.

Shelly, Lindsay, and our life saver!

This is what most of our race looked like. We ran pass 5 lakes, it was so beautiful.

We decided to do some extensions while we were waiting for one of our runners.

Shelly, Bunny, Heather, baby Claire, me Lindsay.

This is what the exchanges are. Bunny just finished her run and tagged off to Jenny.

Heather, Jenny, Bunny

Jenny and me, both so happy to be done!

Our whole team together after we crossed the finish line. Van 1 got to get all cleaned up, out car didn't. I made headbands for our team to wear for pictures.