For about the past four years, some friends of ours have been trying to convince us to run the Wasatch Back Ragnar with them. For those of you who don't know, the Wasatch Back Ragnar is an overnight relay race from Logan to Park City along the back of the Wasatch Mountains. This year the total mileage was 198. We finally agreed to try this adventure this year. We were on a co-ed team of 6 men and 6 women, divided into 2 vans. Some of us are serious hard-core runners, others of us just run for fun. We've been training for months now to try and be ready. This being the first time for husband and I, we were pretty nervous. The week before, I heard someone on the radio say that there were 17,000 some-odd people that would be running. I think that was the first time it had clicked with me that there were exchange points that would be horribly crowded. I don't like crowds. At. All. That's when my anxiety kicked into high gear. I lost 4 pounds that week because I had no appetite. Oy. But we were still excited. We were running with a fantastic team, and the people in our van were all newbies like us. So I think we were all pretty empathetic toward each others nerves. We left the boys with Husband's mom, and my sister took the girls. We headed out Friday morning around 10 am to meet up with van 1, who had been running since around 6am. Here we are waiting for runner 7 to come in so I could do my first run:
The rest of the night was pretty rough for everyone. The guy that ran after me, Andy, had an 11.6 miler through the mountains. Starting around 1:00am. I think the second wind had worn off by now and we were all very aware of the interruption to our circadian rhythm. We tried to sleep in the van while we waited for Andy, knowing it would take a while. I couldn't sleep, I was still too wound up from my run. Husband managed to, but it didn't actually make him feel better. When we got home and looked at the map for that exchange, we realized we'd been at a high school with a sleeping area. Husband really wished we'd taken just our pillows and gone in. Chalk that up to another lesson learned by newbies! Husband took over from Amy around 5:30am, just as the sun was rising. He had a hard 6.3 mile run from Peoa to Oakley. It was rated moderate. He did awesome, finishing at about 6:30am. He said his IT band tightened up a couple times, but as he kept going it loosened up just fine. I waited for him at the exchange while everyone else tried to sleep in the van. He handed off to van 1, and then we headed to a middle school in Heber City where we would have our next van exchange. For $5, they let you use their toilets (FLUSHABLE!) and have a hot shower. Hot is a relative term meaning cold. But it was worth it! We felt immensely better after the shower. I even got lucky and stood in the cold water long enough to get some lukewarm water. I took advantage and even shaved my legs. Ah, the luxury! After a shower, we headed over to the other part of the fundraiser - $5 for a pancake/bacon/juice breakfast. It smelled amazing. And tasted fantastic. Maybe because we were all tired and starving, but those pancakes were light and fluffy and the bacon was perfect. The juice actually ended up being Tang, which totally took me back to my childhood. After that, we threw the sleeping bags on the lawn and attempted to sleep. It was about 9am. I did manage to fall asleep for 15 minutes, then I woke up for a bit and fell asleep for another 15 or 20 minutes. Laying down, once again, did make us all feel better. At about 11:15, our 6-month-pregnant runner (she was awesome!) from van 1 went past us on her way to the exchange, so it was time to get a move on! We sent runner 7 to the exchange and jumped in the car to try to beat her to the next one. I have to say, Erin (runner 7) rocked that last leg. She was tired and her knees were hurting, but she powered into the end of her run. That really gave me a little boost, which I needed because I had been most nervous about this run from the day we picked out our legs. This run was 5.5 miles through Midway. It was considered a moderate run, with a steady incline all the way through. I was nervous about getting lost, because there were 10 different turns I would have to make through this town. I knew I would be tired and that it would be in the heat of the day. My nerves came back full force while I waited at the exchange. I decided to skip my little 7 ounce flask and just packed a full bottle of gatorade since it was already so hot just sitting in the parking lot. Once Erin handed off to me, I had a short-lived burst of "I can do this!" for about 2 blocks. When I hit the first turn and saw what was in front of me, my brain switched to "I don't want to do this." I was fighting my own attitude the rest of the way. The heat was really getting to me. My system was to stop and walk whenever I needed a drink so that I wouldn't spill all over myself. This got me through the first 3 1/2 miles. At that point, every time I hit a turn I was searching for the One Mile To Go marker. And with every turn I didn't see it. This run felt like it was never going to end. At about 4 miles, I had a couple swallows of gatorade left, and I felt like I'd better save it. A very kind man was standing in his yard with his hose, spraying down any runner that wanted it. I stopped completely and let him soak me, and then as I got going again he soaked my back. It felt so good! But I was dry about 5 minutes later. I've been told it's been hotter in years past, and I can't imagine that. There were a few vans that had stopped to spray down their runners with spray bottles, and 3 of them sprayed me down, as well. Angels, all of these people! At this point, my ankles were very angry at me for trying to do this run after all that downhill 12 hours earlier. I couldn't run in the road, and the shoulder was just uneven dirt. So I was limp/walking/running. I finally turned left for the last time and saw the mile marker about a block away. At the bottom of a very nasty looking hill. I just wanted to sit down right there and cry. I did not have it in me mentally to conquer that hill! I took a few deep breaths and told myself that I would walk as slowly as I needed to until I hit the hill, and then I was going to run up that hill. I finished off the two swallows of gatorade, and while I slowly walked I texted my van the following: 1 mile. It'll be a long one. HILL!!! I had then reached the hill, so I reached down deep, sucked it up, and ran up the hill. It was ugly, my friends. My ankles were not happy with me. But I did it, I ran to the next turn! At which point, I turned right and saw that the hill got steeper. At that point my heart wasn't really that fond of me either, so I was getting dizzy and in general didn't feel that fantastic. I power-walked up the hill, and then I saw the turn for The Homestead, which was the end of my run. I really wanted to finish strong, so I gave it everything I had and powered it in to the end. And then my legs totally buckled. I managed to not fall very hard, and I aimed for the grass, but I fell. Amy snapped this picture, which is completely unflattering:
I even managed to smile! And then the volunteer got mad at us for taking a picture and yelled at Amy that she needed to get me up and moving so I didn't pass out. Yes, we know, we know. I think I was ready to pass out anyway. When I did manage to stand up, I was pretty shaky. Here's the blatant honesty - I couldn't hold back the tears. I was exhausted in every possible way and I just got super emotional. I really appreciate my team being so understanding at this point especially since most of them had endured much more on their runs than I did. Amy put her arm around me and told me to go ahead and cry, I had definitely earned that much. Husband took my arm and helped support me back to the van. It was several minutes before I felt calmed down. We took off up Guardsman pass, where Andy and Tyler took turns running approximately 4 miles up that ridiculous mountain. They both finished faster than their projected times. Awesome! After running it up to the top of the mountain, Amy got to bring it back down the opposite side - a very steep 8mile downhill run. She did a fantastic job on that one! She passed off to Husband. This exchange was basically within sight of the finish line, but the run went up and over a hill in the opposite direction, and then down and around to the finish. We had been informed that the map was wrong, and boy was it ever. The hill he ran looked AWFUL from where we were, but where it dropped out of sight it actually got worse. Husband powered up the hill like a madman, but when he got to what was supposed to be the top, it turned and went up again! We looked it up when we got home, and he ended up climbing 200 feet in a quarter mile. Steep, folks! He had to walk that part, it was too steep and it was a dirt trail. He flew back down the mountain and up to the finish line. He looked so great coming around the corner and onto the track! I wish I were tall enough to get a picture over all the people in front of me. The team joined him for the last 30 feet or so, finishing together at 34 hours, 35 minutes and 54.1 seconds. Not as fast as the team from Weber State that did it in a little over 19 hours, but still respectable if you ask me!
At the finish line with our medals
The finish line, unfortunately did not turn out to be fun for me in the slightest. Remember how I mentioned at the beginning my crowd anxiety? Let me clarify. I don't just dislike crowds. They don't just make me uncomfortable. My heart starts to race, I get sweaty and dizzy. I tend to just focus on my breathing and try not to have a panic attack. Husband has learned over the years how to help me deal with this anxiety, and if he is around, or someone else that knows me well enough, I do just fine. I am usually determined not to let my fear stop me from doing something I want to do. In this case, since husband was the last runner, it was just me with my team in an incredibly crowded, chaotic situation. At the finish line, the whole team waits, so there was a ton of other teams of 11 people waiting in the same small space. In addition, it's very noisy because they have a live band, and also there are a lot of family members who come to see their loved ones finish. Crowded is a bit of an understatement. I was just holding onto husband's end-of-the-race gatorade and trying to focus on breathing. I wasn't talking, I was just trying to focus. Some of my team members from van 1 really wanted to talk about the race and whether or not I'd had fun. Since they didn't know about my anxiety, they didn't understand how close I was to losing it. I really had no reserves left. At that point I'd been up for about 36 hours. Keeping it together was getting really hard. I'm afraid I wasn't very pleasant at that point. I don't really remember what I said in response to anybody's question, but I'm sure I wasn't very polite. When husband came in, we posed for some pictures, and all I could think about was how I wanted to get to the hotel and sleep. Husband was hungry, though, and the team wanted to get some of the free pizza and ice cream sandwiches. I thought eating would make me feel better, but it didn't. I couldn't hold it together anymore, so I turned around in my chair, and tried not to cry. I wasn't succeeding very well, so Husband finally told the couple that was driving that I was too upset to stay and that he was taking me back to the van. I felt bad, spoiling everyone else's good time, but at that point I was horribly embarrassed and didn't want to be around anyone. Just leaving the high school field helped me get some deep breaths because there were definitely less people in the parking lot. I felt okay once we got back to the van, and our van 2 teammates showed up very shortly thereafter. We headed to the hotel, where a shower had never felt so good! I laid down for a little bit. I think I fell asleep, and then we joined the rest of the team for dinner. I was still on the verge of losing it, though, so Husband took me back to our room around 9pm, and I fell asleep the second I laid down. The next morning, we checked out and went to brunch at Little America with the rest of our team. It was amazing, as usual!. It was nice to get home to our kiddos, though. I don't have a full team picture, I need to get someone to send one to me. But we did get a shot of Van 2:
Now that I've had a few days to rest, and I have a little better perspective, I can honestly say that it was a blast. We couldn't have asked for better teammates, particularly those in Van 2 with us. I really did enjoy everything right up to my last run. I think if I'd been able to get more sleep, I wouldn't have had a breakdown at the end. From what other people have told me, van 1 gets about 4 hours of sleep during the night, which is when your body is used to sleeping. They also get to go to the hotel and shower and take a short nap before the finish line. That would've made a huge difference for me, I think. Almost everyone we talked to said Van 1 is definitely better. The question everyone has now is would we do it again? I don't think I can answer that at this point. I really did have so much fun, but the end kind of spoiled that. If we did it again, I'd know more what to expect, but there's no way to really prep for that sleep deprivation. Also, I think if I could train better, that would be good. With husband's schedule and the kids school stuff, my running time is between 6am and 7am. When little brother (or any of them) has a bad night, 6 am just doesn't happen because I need my sleep more. So we'll see if we ever do another one. And now, for you friends out there who might be thinking about running a Ragnar, here are some tips Husband and I learned from people who'd done it before and from doing it ourselves:
#1 - Immodium. My stomach gets really upset when I'm nervous. I got the multi-symptom one. This calmed my stomach down a lot. I still had nerves, but my stomach wasn't upset. I took it about every 8 hours throughout the race. It also reduced the amount of time I needed to spend in the HoneyBuckets! (Sorry if that was TMI, but it was a really good tip I got from somebody else!)
#2 - chocolate milk, uncrustables sandwiches and bananas. This might sound a little weird, but chocolate milk is an awesome recovery drink. I bought the little individual packs to keep in our small cooler in the back of the van, and we each had one after every run. I also followed the advice of my friend, Teresa, and bought those Smuckers Uncrustables Sandwiches. They're frozen, crustless peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. We took them out of the freezer the morning we left, and they were perfect. I normally don't love them, but they were perfect after a run. So the chocolate milk, a sandwich and a banana did wonders to help me recover after my legs - especially that last one!
#3 - Salt caps - I bought the salt stick brand. These have electrolytes and a bunch of other stuff I can't remember now. Basically, it helps you retain the liquid you drink instead of it running straight through you. Totally helps with the dehydration, and also with muscle cramping. I took one after each leg, and for my last one I took one before, as well. Big help.
#4 - I really wish I'd brought an eye mask and ear plugs. I saw a lot of people who'd figured this one out, and I think I would've been able to sleep better when we were just camped on the grass if I'd had these.
Those are the big ones I can remember. We googled the particular ragnar we were doing and found a lot of useful and not so useful tips. That helped us know a little better what to expect, too. Thanks again to our awesome team - we had a fantastic time hanging out with all of you!
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