Third Wasatch Back is over! It was so fun and went by so fast this year. I had a great time with the other girls in our van. You learn so much about each other by spending an entire day in the car together and sharing in the fun and in the misery.
I loved our Suessy theme. I thought it was very appropriate.
I was in charge of food this year for the race, and my kids were so jealous when they saw the chocolate milk, yogurts, chips, that I brought home and wouldn't let them touch. Miles said to me, "When I grow up I'm going to do races too!" Simone told me that the side of the package of M & M's said "Moms share with your kids!" after I wouldn't let them open anything. Lol.
Miles asked me a couple of weeks ago, "Mommy, why do you keep signing up for all those races?" I had to laugh and asked him if he likes to play with his friends. He said yes. And does he like playing soccer? Yes. Well, that is how I feel about running. It helps me stay healthy, I get to play with my friends, and I get to compete in something.
This year I was runner #1. I was pretty stoked about my legs. They were long, but long isn’t usually the problem for me. I have good endurance generally. I liked that my first two legs were longer, and the last one was shorter. Get the hard ones out of the way while my legs are fresh.
Leg #1—We started out winding around in some river bottoms in Logan. It was nice and cool and perfect temperature. I think the really fast runners were right in front at the start line, and I was basically in back. I like to pass rather than be passed, so that was fine with me. After a few minutes people spread out and established their paces. I settled in behind a lady who looked like she was going a good pace. I asked her what she was shooting for and she said 8:30. I knew she wasn’t going that fast, so I figured I’d try to stay with her. We talked for a bit, but I don’t run as fast when I am chatting so I just shadowed her basically. It was a nice run. There were some ups and down. Nothing too difficult, but it was a long leg overall. I finished the first leg with an average pace of 8:45 for 7.8 miles. I felt great and was really happy with my nice cool morning run. Logan is beautiful!
Leg #13--I was really looking forward to my second run. I thought it sounded easy. 1 mile uphill from Snowbasin, then a pretty steep downhill for another 7. Well, I learned that there is a downside to being well-hydrated. I didn’t get to use the Honey Buckets (AKA portapotty)before my run because there wasn’t time. The first mile was a steep uphill and I finished that at a 10:30 pace and passed lots of people along the way. I didn’t need to walk and I felt great. The downhill seven started off with two really fast miles. When my legs are moving really fast and pounding that downhill, and my bladder is full—well, you get the picture. I tried to laugh it off, but then I realized that my favorite green shorts show it all off. Crap! Well, there was no one around me so I just tried not to worry about it. I had a killer sideache that started in at about the same time. Then after I’d put it out of my mind and settled into a groove, I got the call from my team that my car wouldn’t start and the other girls on my team were stuck up in the parking lot. That was my biggest fear with driving my car. It has close to 200,000 miles on it and seems to be going strong, but you just never know. So then I am scrambling and trying to figure out what Plan B will be if my car isn’t working and how we'll get to our next legs. I called Jared, I called my dad, and was just basically trying to figure out what in the world we were going to do. All this while running down this mountain with a terrible sideache. I guess being on the phone slowed me down and my sideache went away so that was good. My car eventually started and ran fine the rest of the way. We don’t really know what was wrong, but my teammates were able to get some nice guys to help with the car and they got it working. The last couple hundred yards were fun. I heard a guy coming up on me and decided I didn’t want to be passed again, so I just turned it up and booked it in. We kinda shared a laugh about that after the handoff. My average pace ended up at 9:03/mile—much slower than what I’d anticipated for a downhill. Oh well!
Leg #22-- My final leg was early in the morning on Saturday. We underestimated how long it would take to get to the next exchange from where we slept. And our other van finished a little before when we thought she was coming in. So instead of waiting for us to get to the exchange, Shelah, our super fast runner picked up the first mile or so of my run for me. The run was basically a V shape. Downhill, then uphill. Neither was too steep. I was still feeling the cramping in my side on the downhill, and was actually happy for the uphill—if you can really call it that. My average pace ended up at 9:28/mile. I really had to try hard to not be running and thinking “this sucks” the whole time. My legs were fatigued, my side was hurting and I was anxious to be done. But the irony is that once I was done, I kinda had a “that was it?” kind of feeling. It was odd to be finished already! As hard as it was, it went pretty fast and I was sad that we were almost done. It is such a fun experience, even with the lack of sleep.
After we finished our legs, we showered (ahhh) had lunch, and headed to Park City to the finish. Ragnar needs to do a better job of figuring out traffic. Doubling the teams this year led to most of the teams not being able to have their whole team at the finish line. It took longer to get into the parking lot than for their runner to complete the last leg. And that is a real downer not to even be able to participate in that.
Our team finished in about 30 hours 51 minutes and ranked 29th of the all women teams.
I think this race is getting easier each time, my expectations are aligning with reality. This year, we did a few things differently than in the past to make things a little easier/cheaper/less complicated.
Instead of staying overnight in Logan at a hotel, we woke up the morning of and just drove up. Van 2 drove to their first exchange, instead of seeing us off at the start so they could get a little much needed sleep.
We drove ourselves this year. Although we missed our fun drivers, we ended up with a little more room and that was a good thing since we took my Expedition and it doesn’t have a ton of cargo space.
Our team has a strong history of being super, duper organized. We have a food budget, gas budget, shirt budget, etc. and all send in the money to our captains and everything gets done accordingly: Race bible is printed and bound, Spreadsheets with the expected exchange times, Homemade cookies, First Aid kits with pretty much anything you could need in them, Vinyl lettering for the cars. It is pretty neat! I’ve learned a lot from these ladies. I think someone in our van mentioned that we get the “Relief Society” Ragnar version every year, and I think that is about right.
We also slept outside on the grass instead of staying overnight somewhere. I don’t know if that part was worth it. It was a little cold outside at about 3 am, and with doors slamming, cars honking, and all the commotion of thousands of people coming and going, I don’t know how much I really slept.
I was in Van 2 the first year, and Van 1 the past two. Van 1 is sooo much easier in my book. I was tired yesterday, but sleeping in and having a nap is all that it took to get back to normal, where in Van 2 It was several days before I felt normal again. The sleep times are just really odd, so you really don’t sleep for about 36 hours.
I loved this race this year, but while I would like to do another relay, I'd also like to go run someplace I haven't seen before. Hood to Coast looks awesome. Maybe next year!
