Ragnar Wasatch Back 2018

I went into this race so excited.  My goal was to run the biggest mountains I could find this year.  I had considered the Timp half marathon, but when the chance to do Wasatch Back came up I jumped on it.  When my team captain assigned me the biggest hills on the course I was even more thrilled!  The other runner on our team to draw a massive uphill leg was excited, but very anxious.  I sent her this the night before the race.  Unfortunately the last line didn't apply to us since our legs didn't include the thrill of swooshing down the other side.

We voted on a team name, the runner up names were a star wars theme and "I thought you said rum!".  So, I drew up a team logo that tried to incorporate the costuming and rum concepts.  My team liked this a lot and everyone wanted to dress up like pirates (except the husbands I guess, but they didn't really get to vote.)


7:30am Friday June 2.
Our team was an online running club, so we didn't know each other in person and dressing up sure made it easy to find each other!  We wore our costumes to start the race and tried to pull them together for a finish line picture (except I lost mine before we finished, so no pirate for me at the finsh line :(  As much as possible we dressed in our pirate theme the whole race.  We had so much fun at each exchange scanning the horizon for black and red!

Van 1

Van 2

Hi Coneheads team!

the first exchange for Van 2, this is where it all started for us!  (Team 409 that's a spray cleaner right?)

Here is our runner 7.  I love this lady, she has a huge box full of running costumes.  For years she ran races every weekend at lightning speed pushing special needs children and she always dressed up in Disney-ish costumes usually princesses, to make it fun for them.  This was her eight or ninth Wasatch Back.

Runner 8 another amazing lady, a coal mine engineer from Kemmerer, she put half of this team together.  Her awesome running tutu lit up like a christmas tree at night, I need one of those if I do another Ragnar.

I forget what exchange this was across the street from, it was either 9 or 10.

Ragnar Van Art.  My online running group is "Run4Fun" and we draw "4" on our calves at races to find each other.  While decorating the van we marked our legs and found Run4Funners at the very next exchange.  My 4 was sadly very small since I had to wear compression during the race to fight shin spints.

Run4Fun friends!

Our van had cowbells, but I don't think I saw any other teams with them.  I saw some fun exchanges though.  My favorite was a birthday cake with lit candles waiting for a runner.  A few teams made tunnels.  My team had a ginormous foam hand at my first exchange and cowbell of course.  My runs always ended at major exchanges and were very lively!  Cheering runners on at each exchange is important its part of what make relay races so fun.  At night this was hard to do because as the temperatures dropped into the 20's or 30's (it was debated), teammates were not as likely to be hanging out waiting.  It seemed like every third runner to come in didn't even have a team waiting.  They usually showed up eventually though.

Here is the beginning of the Ragnar Leg.  The toughest leg in each Ragnar is called the Ragnar Leg and runners get a special medal for running it.  This 7.4 mile leg included 6 miles of tough uphill climbing and a mile of downhill about halfway through.  Its pretty much like going up stairs for 3 miles a break and then 3 more miles.
I was thrilled when I checked my time on the downhill segment for this and saw I had made a 1-mile PR of 7:20!  My goal for the uphill was 12:00 miles, but I made 11:30, so that was exciting too.  I had no idea how long this run would take, I estimated 90-120 minutes and finished in 75.  I sadly have no pictures of my Ragnar Hill medal because my battery died, but I was proud and wore it to dinner at a very delicious Thai restaurant in Ogden.


A picture I took of an upcoming switchback on my run, it was green and pretty, sun was setting, so it wasn't too hot, a very nice run.

beautiful road in June, but treacherous in winter.


Okay, I may have stopped running a few times to take pictures of the road below.  The run started at pineview reservoir and had great views.


I loved these fun signs that were posted at every mile on the Ragnar leg, they made me smile.

Fancy Castle Mansion I passed along the way.







Almost to the top!

The next segmant of Wasatch Back was pretty rough for our Van.  One of our runners was in extreme knee pain and one develped a horrible migraine and had to be taken home.  A third runner dressed too lightly and cramped up due to cold during the run.  I jumped in and ran for runner 10 a 6 mile downhill segment.  It was a great leg.  I forced myself to run walk, so I would still have energy to run my own leg an hour later.

My night leg was really a sunrise leg along Echo reservoir, beautiful!  I had arranged to have a pacer for this leg.  He was hoping to run 9:00 miles, but I had already run 13 miles and didn't have it in me, so we ran 9:30 instead.  I enjoyed having someone to chat with the whole way and someone pushing me to do my best and this was an awesome leg!

Our poor injured runner powered through her second leg in extreme agony of the knee, but she still had her most difficult leg to go.  Her husband wanted to run it for her, but he was limping after his freezing cold night run and didn't have it in him.  So now my awesome husband swooped in and saved the day, here he is coming into the exchange after a nice, hot leg full of all kinds of steep up and downhill running.  He was amazing!


exchange 31

exchange 32


exchange 34, surprise runner!  When our runner left 33, he had no idea who would be waiting for him at this exchange.  We had lots of volunteers, but here is the lucky girl!  Runner 1 from Van 1.  Our team name seemed to have doomed us a bit, but we managed to keep running, yay!
 
exchange 34

All that white in the background are Ragnar vans parked at the finish line, but at this point I still had 900 feet to go up and 900 feet to go down.

A runner getting ready to pass me as I turned around to check out the view.  The picture doesn't show how steep, but I can see how hunched over this lady was as she clawed her way up the hill.

Hill Star Ranch below is the white, you can hear people cheering at the finish line for almost the entire leg.


This is my next team! I'm sure the other window said David.  (right brothers?)

This was the second time in a week.  Earlier I saw a corner that had all three names together on election posters, but I didn't take a picture, this time I decided I had to catch it.