Ragnar!!!

Well after months of preparing for it, the weekend of Ragnar finally came last Friday and Saturday June 27th & 28th.

I remember when I was asked to do it about 9 months ago or longer...I really hesitated to say yes. I honestly couldn't imagine doing it, but then something in me just changed and I said yes and from that point on I decided in my head that I was going to do it and train hard for it. I just figured why not? I needed to start setting more goals and achieving them. So from about March on, I stuck to my training schedule that Kelli wrote up for me and I didn't miss a single run in 3 months!

 It was definitely hard to add miles each week, but I just told myself how many I was supposed to do each day and made myself do it. It did gradually get a bit easier and I just loved the feeling I had when I actually ran more than the time I had before, and faster than the time before!

Anyway.......

It finally happened last weekend and it was so much fun!! Definitely a challenge, but I was so glad I did it and would totally do it again.

The night before we all went over to Jana's house and decorated and packed the van...

  Our theme "PTA MOMS...Why are you running away?"

I printed off the bobble heads and runner's bodies and we stuck them all over the windows, then wrote with window markers.
It was really cute!

Then we were up and on our way by about 5:40 on Friday morning.

I was runner 2, so my first run was 8.7 miles and it went from River Heights out to Mountain Crest high school in Hyrum. It was listed as "very hard" and it was! But I was determined to stick with the pace I had worked up to. 

This was about halfway through that run... 

 When I came up almost to the McDonald's in Hyrum, I could see Lars and the boys standing there and it made me cry...it felt so good to see them supporting me after that hard run!

  

Then my second leg I actually traded out to Jana because of her foot injury...so she took my 3.6 and I did her 4.9. It went through Morgan and was beautiful.

The other girls running...

 Our exchange at Snow Basin...waiting for van 2

 After we'd all completed our second legs of the race it was after midnight...only Stefanie had to do a run totally in the dark...

After she finished that leg and we picked her up, we finally got to the exchange we needed to be at to start running again in the morning, so we tried to get some sleep in the van.

A couple girls slept really well...but not me! I was in the front seat trying to get comfortable around the steering wheel and trying to block our the snoring coming from the very back seat...you know who you are (JANA COBURN)! Oh well, 5:30 am finally came and we gradually started getting up and dressed for the day and our first runner started about 6:30. Then I ran my last leg that was 3.7 miles at about 8:30. I pushed myself and did it at a 10.08 pace and it felt really good. Especially when I was DONE!

I really just felt so proud of myself. It still surprises me that I did this race!

So then the rest of our van finished their legs and pretty much everyone (who had already run Ragnar) just wanted to head home and not wait for van 2 to finish and then all of us go across the finish line together, which is how it's supposed to work. So we took a bunch of pictures in our cute shirts...

 And then we all went and got burgers and shakes and fries here...

 ...and then we headed home. Stef and I were kind of bummed to not do the finish line and get our medals etc...but oh well.

 We got home about 4 and washed the paint off the windows and unpacked the van.

The other team got our medals to Jana and she gave me mine yesterday....

Anyway just such a huge accomplishment for me!!