Ragnar Relay Race Report

Wasatch Back was so much fun! It's hard to come up with the words to describe it. To begin with this was something I never imagined myself doing. I had read about other people's experience and just knew I wanted to do it, but doubted I would ever get to. I didn't know 11 other runners to put a team together. Through this experience I was able to meet 23 other women whom all share the same joy of running, and realized there's a whole community of us running moms out there. But it was particularly a pleasure meeting the 5 other women in my van with whom I spent 30 hrs with in very close proximity. At the beginning I was more than uncomfortable not knowing anyone, but as the day progressed I learned that indeed I we had more in common than that one thing that brought us together.

It was also funny to see how we all call running "my time" or "therapy." Often I have felt guilty for taking time to fit running into my day, my time, even when my kids and husband are still sleeping. I've felt selfish. Knowing that there are other mommies doing the same thing, makes me feel a great relief from my guilt.

I got to meet some of the moms on Thursday night at one of the "Mommies Got Back" team members house. We each brought something to eat. We visited and tried to put faces together to screen names and blogs. I have to admit it was very intimidating to be amongst strangers and found myself wondering "What in the heck did I get myself into?" The next morning we had plan to carpool to the starting line in Logan. Some of us met at the South Towne Mall's parking lot and met for the first time. Got into a Suburban and made way to Logan making another stop in Roy to pick up a couple other runners. We arrived at another's stranger's parent's home where breakfast was awaiting and the rest of the runners coming from different places would meet. We had breakfast, tried to get acquainted with each other as much as we could and then headed outside to decorate our vans and get into "costumes." Part of the fun in this relay races is getting into character wearing costumes. It was fun. I soon found out of the creativity and sense of humor of these women. I was still very apprehensive and wondering the same thing "Why in the heck did I get myself into this?" I was finding it hard to find someone to click with. Most of the women were older than me, definetly had different backgrounds, and my shyness was not helping. I thought I would just endure to the end. LuckilyI started to feel more at ease once we got to the starting line as we cheered our runners off.

I had leg three, so I had about a couple of hours before my turn was up. It was warmer than I expected it to be after having 2 weeks of non stop rain. I have experience dehydration before and how crappy that can be. I did not want to have to deal with it during this race. I chugged down water all day long and the one before and of course that left me making way too many stops at the lovely porta potties at every exchange point. The runner before me, Mel had a long leg of 6 miles, so when we got to the exchange point I headed to the porta potties thinking I had plenty of time to spare before she got there. Was I wrong!? She was fast. I had barely stepped in there when I heard someone yelling for me "Sarai, she's here, she's here" I literally ran out of there and made it just in time to make the exchange. It caught me by surprise and I took off frantically. I decided from the very beginning, just like all my previous races, that walking would not be an option. My first leg was 4.9 miles with maybe one or two little hills, but for the most part pretty flat and easy. For some reason I feel it was the one I struggled through the most. I think I took off too fast at the beginning and it took me a while to find a good pace. Plus the heat was not helping. I tried to take in my sorroundings, admire the scenery, even got sprayed by a kid with a water hose, had my team members check on me and hand me water a couple of times. My time was about 41 mins.

My team members were all great. I was impressed by all of them. Everyone's legs got complicated at some point, but they all just cruised through their own. Brutal inclines, both going up and down, dusty and rocky trails, etc. We even came accross a herd of cows just after having drove pass our runner. We sat there speechless wondering how that would play out, but were glad to see the problem taken care of and the cows quickly driven clear off the course. We finished with our first set of legs about 30 mins before our projected time, before handing the little slap on metal bracelet with the timing chip in it to the other half of the team. One down two more to go!

We drove around trying to find a nice shade to just crash under. We finally found a church with a nice shaded spot in the lawn that just seem to be calling for us. We made some sandwiches, we took a little babywipe sponge bath, changed clothes in the van, streched, even wished for a stinky porta potty when some of us were forced to take a pee behind the building. LOL! We tried to take a nap when someone realized we were up again in about an hour and we did not even know how to get to our next exchange point which was at least 30 mins away! Yeah, time to panic.

Stay tuned to find out if we made it to our next exchange point in time.

An interesting Fathers Day

This was definitely an interesting Father's Day for Aaron. First he made a trip to the store the night before to buy groceries for me to have something to prepare for him for breakfast in the morning. I had left all of Friday and Saturday for the Wasatch Back Ragnar Relay, and had spent all week long planning for the race that I forgot about fathers day with all the excitement and anticipation I had for Ragnar. He knew I would feel like a jerk if I had nothing special for him in the morning. So he went to the store for me, to save me from feeling like a complete looser for forgetting fathers day.
When the girls woke up in the morning I was expecting him to get up to get them and letting me sleep in, I had just gone more than 30 hrs without sleep during the race. The girls kept calling and he would not get up, that's when it clicked. Aaron would have gotten up to let me sleep in instead if I wasn't going to feel like the biggest jerk when I found out it was fathers day! Again, he did it for me. So stumbled out of bed and got the girls.

This is how I looked the morning after Wasatch Back Ragnar Relay. Naomi took that picture of me. I was very tired.

I got some construction paper, glue, glitter and markers and had the girls make cards for daddy.

OK, I helped a little.

Then I open the fridge to find out daddy had done a little shopping after I passed out once my head hit the pillow. Thank goodness or his crepes would have been very plain.

Breakfast in bed for daddy.

We were on our way to my parents after church later that day. For some reason I wanted to drive. I never drive when Aaron is in the car, but this particular day he let me. A few blocks before getting to my parents Naomi started throwing up all over, and guess who had to jump to her aid while I drove? We almost had a throw up frenzy when Aaron started gagging. It wasn't pretty. Afraid that it might be the swine flu, he volunteered to go home with our sick child and asked that I stay with my parents that night, so that Jocie would not get it if she hadn't already. He came home to spend father day changing sheets, cleaning up and making rounds to the restroom all night long. The next morning he made an appointment and took our little one to the Doctor. Isn't he a good daddy!? Jocie and I were allowed to come home after finding out that she did not have the swine flu. Phew! Then he went to work and school very sleep deprived. Our hero!
Hope you had a happy Fathers Day knowing that we love you and think you are the best. (I will make it up to you in case that wasn't enough.)

Wasatch Back Ragnar Relay

I'm so excited to be able to be part of this little adventure with 23 other wonderful woman that I do not even know and have never met, but know they must be cool.

It's been about a year since someone in the Marathon Mommies blog (a blog about moms that run, obviously) posted about wanting to enter this race but did not have enough people to complete a team of 12 people. She asked if anyone would be interested in doing this and a lot of us replied to her post, more than what she actually needed. And you know us moms, don't want to make anyone feel bad. So in order to include the multitudes of enthusiastic running moms, two teams were formed: "Mommies got back", and "Energizer Runnies" (I'm part of Energizer Runnies)

Like I said it's been a few months of posts and emails to organize our teams. We all trusted and mailed money to complete strangers in charge of registering the teams. Then we all put our input into designing a t-shirt for the team. Someone came up with checklists and we each took our pick at what to bring. Someone made a list and assign each with legs according to their level of expertise or not, even estimated how long it would take our teams to complete the race based on each 24 women's running pace. People volunteered their vans for a weekend. A pre-race party and breakfast were even orginized! ...Whew! Lots and lots of organization and blogging! he-he! And it's finally here! Friday is the big day!

Why on earth am I excited about riding in a van filled with a bunch of complete strangers (6 of us, Imagine the stink!), runing in the heat, cold, dark (one of my legs it's at 11:30 pm) maybe rain, dirt trails, "sleeping" under the stars, repeat, keep going for 30+ hrs? ....I DON'T KNOW! But I guess that's the beatuy of it. Putting myself out there, getting out of my comfort zone (I am really shy), getting to know new people, challenging my mind and body. Oh what I do for the love of running! This is going to be fun!

Something I learned

Sarai, I have enjoyed reading your posts about how you three are doing while I am down here with my brothers. I have thought about you each minute of each day. I miss you very much and have really appreciated and felt the words that you have written while I have been gone.

This has been a great experience for me. Something about spending time with my brothers is so much fun. Being with them, and talking with them, and listening to them, and joking with them, and hearing their stories, all of these things are so interesting to me. I can't explain the why, as I myself don't completely understand why, but these two guys are amazing. I love them very much, and for you to allow me to come down here with them is something that I greatly appreciate. Also, Ned is an amazing friend who I love. Us four guys have had a blast down here. We have tons of pics to help us try and explain what we did and how much fun we had.

While being down here, I have had some time to think about us and to think about our friendship and relationship. I have learned something about you, even though I wasn't with you. I don't know if I "learned" it, maybe I just realized it. You know... put two and two together. Let me try and explain.

I see how hard of a worker you are, and how hard you try as you take care of our family. You put a lot of effort into making us happy and making sure that we are doing well. I see this and I notice it. I also work hard. I take my breaks though. I make time for myself to relax. I never see you do this. I wonder "how does Sarai do it? How does she work and work and work and never take a break?". Well... I think that I answered that question for myself. I think that the reason that you don't, is because you want to take you breaks with ME, not by yourself or with other people. You want to take your time off to spend it with me. I have been on a different page for a long time, and I realize now that you and I need to take our breaks together. I love you and wish that I could tell you that now to your face. I will be home in less than a day, and I will let you know then how much I love you. But for now I want to let you know that I promise that I will work harder on planning time off for the both of us to spend together. We are hard workers and don't get enough time for ourselves, for just the two of us. Time for us to spend together and hang out together. While this may be a piece of simple wisdom for most people, it has taken me some time to figure this out. If nothing else, this time here has helped me learn that and I am committed to coming back and being a different person as far as working with you to plan time off for our family and for ourselves.

I have missed you girls so much. The place where we are staying is a small bed and breakfast that is one block from the beach. The owners live here on the top floor, with their small family. They have two little girls, Adina (2) and Noelia (7 months). Each day as we get back from our activities, we have these two little girls that we get to see and play with. They have been so entertaining for us. Ryan, Ned and I have each missed our children, and these two girls made that desire to see them even stronger. They are funny, smart, little girls that are a lot like our girls. You would love them. Adina and I sang the pinata song about 100 times this week ("Dale Dale Dale, no piedas el tiro..."). She loves it and finally found someone who knows all of the words, me. We sang it every day and she thought that it was awesome.

The first two days here, Joel and I went deep sea fishing. The first day I spent most of the day throwing up and sleeping on the boat. Sleeping was the only thing that I could do to prevent myself from throwing up again. It was a rather difficult day for me. That night I took some Dramamine (pills to fight sea-sickness) and then the next morning before we left, I took two most. So the second day, I didn't get sea sick at all. It was awesome. I got dibs on the first fish, since i was sick the day before. It was luck that the Marlin was the first fish of the day. Had it been the second, Joel would have gotten the Marlin. Had I not spent most of the first day throwing up, I might not have gotten the Marlin that I got. It was awesome. The fish was beautiful. It fought for about 45 mins. After that, we could quite a few more fish. On top of that, we both got solid sun burns.

The next day, Joel and I went to some Cenotes. These were awesome. One was like an Oasis, or a natural pool. It was cool. There were tons of little fish in it. We would hold a small piece of bread in our hands and within a few minutes, you couldn't see your hand anymore, as the fish would swarm your hand and eat the bread. It was awesome. We have lot of pictures of this and even got some video of it. It was cool. Joel has an underwater camera, and we got it all on there. After that Cenote, we went to the next one. It was an underground Cenote, or as the guide called it, an Underground River (un Rio Subterranio). It was amazing. I don't know how to describe it to you. You are going to have to see the pics when I get back. It was amazing. I would have a blast doing that with you. I want you to come back here with me and go to a Cenote with me. After the Cenotes, we went and got some tacos. The tacos were made with Cochinita Pibil. They were awesome. We washed it down with some dessert. I had a Gansito and Joel had a BubuLubu. It was funny. After that we went to a town and bartered with the locals. It was fun. I got some good prices. We got better prices on some things than our hosts get. The Swine Flu Scare has killed this economy so bad, that the shop owners were desperate to sell anything, so we got great deals. I bought two hammock chairs, which would cost the hosts 500 peses, but I got them for 400 pesos. It was awesome. I bought a Marlin trophy, some stuff for you and the girls and an America handkerchief. Then we went home, had dinner, hung out, and went to bed.

Today, Joel and I slept in until about two in the afternoon. It was awesome. I am killing that by staying up so late, but it was nice. After that, I got up and showered, had some fruit and then went to the beach to listen to a book on tape and watch the ocean. I found a nice palm tree to sit under, that was right on the water, and I just sat there and listened to my book. It was amazingly relaxing and restful. We will do that when we come back, I promise. I know that you would love it and would really appreciate it. After about an hour, Joel showed up. Somehow he knew where I would be. We sat there and talked for a bit, and then decided to go back to the house and get the snorkeling stuff and come snorkel. We did this. We were going to go out deeper, but I am a wuss. I am nervous about getting eaten by a barracuda or something. So... we stayed in the shallows and collected seashells for the girls. We got a lot of little ones that they will love. I really thing that they will like them. I found a couple that still had little crabs in them. I let them go though. After that, we went back and showered, had some sodas with Ryan and Ned, ate dinner and then hung out until midnight. Then Ryan and I went down to the beach, walked out on the dock and sat at the end. We were just talking and chilling. It was nice. We were playing around with his camera, cause it was doing some cool stuff with the moon as bright as it was. Then we came back home and I am now here writing you.

The food here has been amazing. These people are great chefs. The first night they gave us barracuda ceviche for dinner. It was amazing. Mauricio caught the barracuda with a spear the day we got here. The second night they gave us some huge Mahi Mahi steaks, since Joel caught a huge Mahi Mahi and brought it back. They cooked it up for us and it was amazing. The third night they gave us some seafood pasta. It was amazing also. I loved it. The pasta was homemade and the sauce was also homemade. The entire dish was amazing. They gave us so much. Ryan finished off my plate and Joel's plate. It was that good! Last night they gave us Mole. It was amazing, and perhaps the best Mole I have ever had. Tonight, they gave us Mango Sea Bass with veggies. It was perhaps the best fish I have ever had in my entire life. Each night dinner we given to us with their homemade bread, homemade guacamole and chips, and anything you want to drink. My drink of choice, Tropical Pineapple. It was awesome! In short, the food was amazing. Each night we gave our compliments to the chef, as the food was just superb.

The owners here are Mauricio and Yvonne. He is from Argentina and she is from Switzerland. They are a cute couple. They speak Spanish, English, German, Italian, French and some Indonesian. They are really smart people. They are young, maybe my same age or just a few years older. They really made this trip even better than it would have been. They are so friendly and their kids made it tons more fun for us. The fact that they would let their kids come play with us was awesome, and then when the food was ready and served, they would also come and hang out with us. That might have bothered us, if they weren't so cool and funny. But they are awesome people that are very interesting. Their accents in spanish and english are very interesting, because they speak so many languages. Like when Mauro would speak english, he would "uncht" instead of "and", kind of mixing German, Spanish and English all into one sentence. It was interesting and fun. Yvonne was similar. She has a European accent and would mix words in once in a while that we would have her explain.

Each morning for breakfast they would give us anything we wanted for breakfast. My breakfast of choice was a bowl of fruit and Tropical Pineapple. The bowl of fruit contains Mango, Pineapple, Banana and Orange. It was amazing to have such fresh fruit. You would have loved it, and will love it when we come back together.

Hopefully you see a little of what we went through down here. I want to experience this with you. There are a ton of things that I didn't get to do, because we ran out of time. I would love to come down here with you and enjoy it. We need to plan it as soon as I get home. I have grown to understand the need for a break, and I want to take a break with you. We deserve it.

I will be home tomorrow night at 7:55 is when we will get there. I will call you once we get home and you can come get me with the girls. I have a surprise for each of you.

I love you baby. Thanks for giving me this opportunity to enjoy this place with my brothers. My only regret is that I didn't come here first with you. We need to come back here together and explore the other things that we can do here.

Mua, Loves, Hugs and Smooches.

While you are still gone

Monday went pretty much uneventful. Mi tia Chave invited us over for breakfast and after that I took the girls on a bike ride to the park near my parents house. Wow! They are heavy! The whole time I was wondering how you do and make it look so effortless, specially when we were going uphill. You are strong, I'm a wuzz.

Anyway. It'd been cloudy all morning, and short after getting there it starting raining. All the little kids and their moms ran to take cover under the little roofed area with the picnic tables, I don't know how it's called, but Not Jocie and Naomi. The rain did not seem to bother them one bit. My thoughts were "It's just water. What is the big deal?" It only lasted a few minutes and then it was gone. No harm done.

After that we went home, had lunch, I put the girls down for a nap and went on a run. It's was a hard run. Every run is hard, but I like it! I didn't like the route I took either. There were no trees whatsoever and even though the sun had been hidden behind a cloud all day long it decided to come out just when I least needed it. Yeah, we are never moving anywhere South from Salt Lake City.

After that I came home and went to the Store with Nathalie to buy something to make for dinner while Mom and Dad stayed with the girls. We made stir fry with veggies, tofu, noodles, and cashews. Yeah, it was yummy, but I doubt yummier that the fresh caught mahi-mahi you probably had for dinner that night. LUCKY!

After that we went through our shower, pjs, books and songs routine at bed time. Naomi asked for you. She wanted to go home to see daddy. I told her you were not home yet, and reminded her that you were in Mexico fishing. She asked "Why?" I said "Because" She misses you. Jocie and I miss you too.

Today (Tuesday):

We woke up before everyone (7am) And had breakfast. Rice cakes and peanut butter, cereal and fruit for the girls and fruit and cottage cheese for me. Naomi got two big aluminum lids from my moms oyas and started using them as cymbals. She said "Look mom! I'm playing the cymbals!" and started marching around the kitchen. I told her to go in the hall way outside Nathalie and Itza's rooms to wake them up. She had fun! Her tias didn't wake up though. After breakfast we got ready to go to Homedepot in search of our Owl to scare away the birds from eating the cherries and we found it! It hangs by the tree as I type. Then we stopped by Smiths to get our ingredients for dinner later. Dad made caldo de res. Came home, put the girls down for a nap and went on a run. I ran to the West Jordan Temple and rescued a little dog from traffic, it's owner lived right across the street from where I found it. She was happy to have "Sassy" back. I also ran across a graveyard and got a mosquito in my eye. Weird. All in one day's run.

Sunday on our way to your mom's Naomi saw the temple and asked if we could go there. I promised her we would. So I made reservations this morning and we went today. Tia Chave, Eunice, Areli, Itza, Nathalie and Don-Hee got to come, so that was exciting. Everything was very organized from being shuttled from the parking lot in this little golf carts to even getting refreshments at the end. Before going in the temple we got to watch a little movie about temples and the making of this particular temple. Before the movie started we got to seat there while soft back round music played. Jocie could not help herself and started dancing around so gracefully. Even lifted her leg behind her like a ballerina. She is so cute. While in the temple Naomi asked me if that was were we had gotten married. I told her no, but that we did get married in another temple as pretty as that one. Jocie did wonderful. I had her in the stroller and she did great. Naomi not so much. We had to leave the sealing room presentation because she wanted to stand up on the chairs. She still got a cookie at the end even though I told her she wouldn't. Oops! Naomi said her favorite part was the movie. Go figure! Don-Hee said his favorite part was the swimming pool. LOL. The rain and the surprisingly chilly temperature did not stop us from enjoying our trip to the temple. Wish you were there.

After that we headed back to buelito's home. Went through our bedtime routine and now the girls are in bed while I blog and talk to you on messenger. Only two more days until you get home! Can't wait to see you.

While you are gone........

So Aaron is away til Thursday on a fishing trip to Mexico with his brothers. Yeah, I have to admit I'm a bit jealous, but glad he gets to spend THAT type of quality time with his brothers, whom he loves very much. Meanwhile I thought I'd try to blog about our days while he is gone so he does not miss out on the fun here at home.

Let's see..You left Saturday morning. After that we packed and got ready to move to buelito and buelitas for the week until daddy gets home. Got the girls clothes, my running clothes and Tank in the car and arrived at buelita's to a delicious mexican breakfast awaiting us, warm home made wheat tortillas and all, YUM! My mom knows how to spoil us! She wasn't done making them so the girls were happy to help, as always. After that we picked some cherries from my parents backyard, trying to get ahead of the birds who are starting to eat them. They beat us to it every year, so we thought we better star taking them down half way ripe and just let them continue to ripe in a box or something. We don't know if they will continue to ripe, but i guess we will find out. Tomorrow we are heading out there again to pick some more. We are also going in search of a fake owl to scare away the birds, per Grandpa Mark's recommendation. The girls ate a couple and discovered they weren't quite ready. After that Grandma Kelli and Grandpa Mark arrived with more fresh fruit just picked from their own back yard, strawberries. It must have been a couple pounds of strawberries. They were nice and sweet and we enjoyed every one of them.
Later that day while the girls took a nap, I went running along the Jordan River trail with my sister Nathalie and her boyfriend Don-Hee. They rode their bikes while I tried to catch up to them. Of course I never did, but stayed within sight of them the whole time. Seriously my heart felt as it was about to pop out of my chest, it was a good work out.

After that Nathalie's friend was having a birthday party for her little boy and we tagged along Mexican style, hehe! The girls had a lot of fun, petted an albino snake and a rabbit the magician had as part of the show. Naomi made friends like she always does while Jocie chased after a little Chihuahua someone brought to the party, and picked on every little ant she'd see crawling on the floor every time she'd look down. You know her, she is our little animal lover. They ate their little hearts content with candy and then we came home. Actually we stopped by blockbuster on our way home, Jocie got her hands on some candy on our way to the register and threw a big tantrum when I took it away from her, you know the type where she melts out of your arms and pushes herself away from you with her legs on your chest type of tantrum, along with some screaming and crying to top it all off. Yeah, I bet you are jealous and wished you were here instead of Cancun. We didn't get to watch the movie, it was late and the girls needed to get to bed, so I'm torturing Naomi and having her wait til Monday to watch her movie, you know me, I'm the Nazi Mormon who does not let her kids watch TV on Sunday, and yes of course that meant some more tears and kicking and screaming before going to bed. Are you jealous now? But after a while and some threatening of taking the movie back she settle for a book and a song, oh! and don't forget the back scratching before going to bed.

Today Naomi woke up screaming "Wake up everyone" I heard her and went into the room to get her. She must have been really tired because all she did was ask " Mommy, is the sun up yet?" It's been cloudy here, so she really couldn't tell if it was time to wake up. I told her no, the sun was not up yet, so she turned around and went back to sleep for another hour. Jocie slept in with tia Areli until 9 AM. Yeah, I could not believe it either. While she slept mom, dad, Naomi and I tried to take Tank and Nakon on a walk, but it started raining and we headed back. We went to church with my parents, but I had to leave during the last hour to go to our branch to teach my lesson, so the girls stayed with mom and dad for Sacrament meeting and what do you think I missed while gone? Naomi's first time going up to say her "testimony" So don't feel bad, you weren't the only one who missed it. My parents said she wanted to go up after she saw another kid go up. They said she was really cute and did not need any help with what to say.

This is what they told me she said:
Hola hnos y hnas. Vamos a ir a Mexico. Gracias por mi mami y mi papi y por Jocie, y por Tanke y Nakon. Amen.

After church we went to Grandma Kelli's and helped her pick some more strawberries. The girls played with Molly and up in your mom's little play room, they also enjoyed playing with the umbrellas. We had dinner and dessert, and visited for a while with grandma Kelli and grandpa Mark. The girls had not had a nap all day, so we headed home early to put them to bed. After pj's, a book, a song, and some back scratches they were both out. Now I'm waiting for you to log in so we can chat before going to bed.

I hope you are having lots of fun in Mexico, even though I know you'd be having way more fun with me there. Please wash your hands often and don't catch the flu. Te amo.