Ragnar.

This weekend was the Ragnar relay race in Las Vegas, Nevada. We ran from Lake Mead to Las Vegas, approximately 188 miles. Our wonderful team of 12 ran for 28 hours straight. Needless to say, it was exhausting. By the end I was cursing my running shoes, saying I would never ever run again, much less for another Ragnar. I just did not anticipate how tired I would be after running two legs, and having to run my last one at 4 in the morning. I could barely stay awake, much less muster up the strength to run in a good time. But all in all, it was a fun experience, and I do not think I am completely done yet with running, and may even be already committed to another Ragnar in February. Oy.

We arrived in Boulder City around 7:30 am Thursday night, and checked into our houseboat. I loved the boat, and would love to stay there again someday! It was so pretty sleeping with the window open, and waking up and seeing water out on the lake. I really really wanna go off the slide on the top of the boat, too! We had a delicious pasta dinner waiting for us, and we all introduced each other, and filled our bellies. Lindsay made the signs for the race, and we went to bed early. We had to be up at 6 am to get breakfast and head out to the safety meeting pre-race.

We had all you-can-eat pancakes for breakfast and headed out to the start line. Our racers in our van were, in this order: Kara, Rick, Jessica, Wade, myself, and Lindsay. Our first legs were not so bad, Rick had some crazy hills, and I thought my hills were a little crazy for only being a "moderate" leg. The heat was so intense! The guy at the restaurant said it was 90* outside!! It was hotter than I have ever ran outside before, but it was only 4 miles. So I powered through, Lindsay ran, and then we met up without other van for exchange 6. In the other van were Alex, Jesse, Brittaney, Randy, Fern, and Dan. Alex, Jesse, Brittaney, and Randy all run marathons. Dan is the defending two-time Tucson Triathlon winner, and Fern is a soccer player. We had an amazing team of runners!!!

While the other team was running, we had lunch, and went back to the boat to shower and rest. We only got to lay down for a short time, it felt like, and we were off to run our second legs. My second leg was 5 miles, and I did it in my best time yet, just under 8:30 pace. I felt like it should have been faster, but I was tired, and the first part was uphill, so I guess it was OK.

After our second legs were finished, we were all exhausted. We only had time to eat (Cheesecake Factory, YUM), rest for a little bit, and then we were running again. I was SO tired by this point. I was cursing the RAGNAR, the van, and all things running. I did NOT want to run my leg, I just wanted to go to sleep and take a shower. Rick's last run was super hard, and he did about 7 miles straight up a mountain. I am thankful I did not have to run his. My run, however, was slightly uphill in dirt, gravel, with huge rocks everywhere. I just could not get a good pace going because I would tweak my ankle on a rock. I do not love trail runs. Also, the vans had to drive past us on the dirt, so we would get dust and dirt kicked up into our face as we were running. It was awful, and I ended up with just under a 10 minute mile pace, which was what my first one uphill in the heat was, as well. Not great. I was SO happy to be done.

Next, after Lindsay finished her dirt eating run, too, we did our last exchange and went to the hotel on the strip to check in everyone, and have breakfast at the Hash House, one of our favorites on the strip. By the time that was done, we headed to the park where the finish was and waited for our team. Some people had some of the free beer, others laid on the ground and took a quick nap. Finally, Van 2 met up, and we cheered Brittany along, and all ran across the finish together. That was a great feeling to be done, and accomplish something that was really difficult. We were all too tired to put on our Hangover costumes, which were pretty awesome. Oh, well... next time. It didn't dawn on me before, but I realized that our friends that drove and navigated, Ann and Marcel, stayed awake for the entire time! While we were resting in the van after our runs, dozing, napping, they were figuring out where to go next and pulling off on the side and cheering for us. We owe them. BIG. They truly are amazing friends.

After everyone was finished running, we finally got to head back to out hotel, the Paris, and shower and nap. I took a really good 3 hour nap, and then Rick was waking me up to head to the Cosmopolitan to meet up with everyone. We hung out in our friend Kyle's suite, had dinner at this yummy burger bar in the Cosmo, went back to the suite for a short time, and headed to bed. We were all super tired, and ready to sleep for hours and hours.



All in all it was a fun weekend, and we had a great time with our friends, and got to celebrate Rick's 30th birthday with everyone. I don't know if I am ready to run again, but today I am back at it. I guess all my ranting and raving about never running again was just exhaustion and delirium. Let's hope.