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.