Can you believe it?!? I can't. well actually i can, everytime i try to sit down on the toilet haha
Here's the scoop: on tuesday last week, we hopped in the 12 passanger van and drove to tyler's parents house in basin city, washington. We got to hang out there for the evening! fun fun. Then the next morning, i had to say bye-bye to my baby, and we loaded up the van agian, and drove the 4+ hrs to seattle! we ate clam chowder and bread bowls at steamers on the water, walked through pikes place, and drove all around where we used to live before heading up to shelton to laura brown's house. Once we got to shelton, we hung out until we were pooped, and hit the sack. The next morning we started packing our stuff for the race! all our food ect. We headed to blaine, wa at about 4, getting there around 8-9pm. stopping in tacoma to scarf down some Spaghetti factory :) mmmm. when we finally pulled into...i'm not quite sure what the town was called, but it's 30min from blaine, our start line. We slept in ahotel...7 of us, in the smalles hotel room EVER haha. we met part of the other van, and attempted to sleep, a very restless sleep, imagining running the next morning!! So, we woke up, and got ready, ate some breakfast and hit the road to find the start-line. a 30 min drive and we were there!!
Mom was runner #1, she was nervous to be first, but she did so good on that run. our start time was 8am, and she took off running a 9 min.mile pace. Of course that leg was the hardest in our van, so running was all these fit, 6ft men, but she did great. We leaped frogged her until she handed off to Rock!
Rock ran her first leg great. there were some decent sized hills, but she manaageed to average a 10.50 mile.pace and soared down her hills along the coast. everytime we passed her she would raise both hands in the air and give us a double pump haha it was so funny. We met her at the shoot, then she handed off to Jake.
Jake ran his 8.9 very hard leg amazingly. he finished in 1hr15min. which is about 7.5 min/mile pace! he passed tons of teams, and just had a huge smile on hi sface the whole time, with his sweat band, and hair just flopping away in the wind. He ran along famrs, and backroads, up and down HUGE hills. He handed off to ME.
My first run was....? well, it was a crazy course. we were on a two lane road, with a 45mph speed limit, with no shoulder. ragnar lesson learned: don't run your first mile in your race, your fastest mile in your life. hahah i was trying so hard not to let a 6ft amazon pass me...after keeping up her 8.5 min/mile pace for about a mile- i was in bad shape for my next 3.5 miles. My shoes were too tight. I guess i was nervous? anyways, my left foot was dead. When i say dead, i mean it. Like intese pins & needles? with no feeling for the last 3miles. I have really bad circulation--and talk about irritating. grr. OH, and at about 2 miles, i was looking at our van, and tripped on the uneven road. haha what a joke! so anyways, even though i wanted to just flop down and quit, chop off my foot, i kept on and managed to keep my average pace, and FINISH! i handed off to gav.
Gavin's leg was hard hard hard. he ran 7.5 miles at a 7.5 min/mile pace! he just sprinted the whole entire thing. he passed tons of teams, and he just blew doors on everyone. We were driving looking for him, and were certain that he had gotten lost because there was no WAY that he was that far in 10 mins....and then we saw him, way up there just at a dead sprint. haha he really saved our team on that run, gave alot of ppl on our team confidence to do their best. he handed off to kelle
Kelles first leg was hard. it was in the heat of the day, and she even got lost, but she kept her pace and she finished that leg, which was over 5 miles! she handed off the the other van- and we then had a few hours to sleep, eat, and get our tummy's back on track!
we drove to the next exchange and got out our sleeping stuff and crashed out in a field, and tried to catch some zzzz's. by about..6? we were ready to start running agian! Mom was first, she had a 4.4 pretty mild run, she got about halfway through, and then got an extrmely painful "pang" in her calf that really about took her to the ground. she finished her run, but was in bad shape even walking to the van. Everyone was really worried about her, especially because she had a 7.6 very hard leg in the morning...she handed off to rocky
rocky's leg was good, in semi-dark conditions. She did great, once agian on her 3.5 ish downhill ish leg. she handed off to jake and jake handed off to me--
my second leg was GREAT. it was dark, and i was running through the city, along the freeway. It was the first time ever that i really got into a "runners high" At one point though it was a pretty scary part of town, and our van was no where to be found. they hadn't leaped frogged me at all the whole run, and it was getting a little irritating. at my lastmile, they finally found me. appartently they were waiting for me, and just missed me. therefore losing me completely. i was mad in the moment, the support helps so much, but, i'm over it :) the run went great. I handed off to gav
gav's 2nd run was pretty easy for him, after his earlier one at least! he handed off to lastly to kelle.
kelle's run was good, she really likes running in the dark, so she kept a good apce ance we were all happy to be done! we handed off the van 2 and went to the exchange place to get some SLEEPPPPP.
when we woke up at about 430am we were like 1 of 6 vans left in the parking lot haha before we went to sleep, we had to figure out what we were going to do for mom. she couldn't run her leg in teh morning...but she thought she maybe able to do a shorter leg that someone else had. so we all swithced around our legs, which i'm sure is illegal, but we weren't going to "win" just to finish, not last haha. So, gavin was going to run first in the morning in place of mom...a 7.6 verrrry hard leg.
at about 5am gav was waiting in the shoot in depception state park crossing onto whidbey island. he ran that leg amazingly. it was painful for all of us to watch him run. it was hard. the last 2 miles were straight up hill. just an unrelenting, hard hard leg. and he was one of the last to finish the night before, and the first to run. I cried when i saw him coming up the last hill to the finish. it was really inspiring, and on my last leg when it was hard up that last hill, i though about him running that las leg, and it pushed me to run harder.
he handed off to rock. her last leg was along the coast, and in thick fog. it was long. that last mile seemed to go forever, but she did awesome. it was longer then she'd ever run before!! so proud of her. she handed off to mom,
mom decided that she was going to finish this thing, running a 2.8 easy leg was perfect. she just totally fought through all the pain, and made it to her finish line strong! she handed off to me-
my last leg was great. it had 2 really big hills, andi passed 3 people. I sprinted down that last hill, and was so happy that i finished strong. after all that training- i was done! i handed off to kelle.
kelle's lst leg was pretty fair, she did great. it had a few hills, and her last 20 feet a 12 yr old boy tried to beat her to the finish, but she pulled a sprint out of nowhere and passed the slap band to jake before he could catch her.
jake fought through his last 6.5 mile leg. his knees were tight, and he had some other aches and pains, but he still managed to get us to the finish line in great time, on a pretty difficult run! he passed to van 2, and we could finally relax, because all we had to do now was wait to get our medals!
van 2 finished their last legs in about 6 hrs, and we all crossed the finish together. :) we then hopped in the car and drove 6 hours back to tricities. that was a loonnnnng drive. i don't know how wade did all that driving on just as little sleep as we had gotten. but we made it there, and it was sooo good to see tyler, and my baby, oh and to sleep in a BED! HAHA all of us were hobbling around because of all our soreness, but it felt good to have accomplished something huge. on sunday we drove the 11+ hrs home.
overall we drove about 2600 miles. ran 188 miles.
I feel so good. All the months of early morning training paid off. i look back and remember running that first mile, how long it took me, how out of breath i was, how impossible a ragnar sounded. And, here i am, with my medal, shirt,and my sticker for me car! RAGNAR 2010.
now i just have one question for myself...WHAT'S NEXT?? :)
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