Amy is Awesome!

I decided to create this blog and totally copy my friend Amy's idea to write about running.  She has an amazing blog that I love called:  runmygutsout.BlogSpot.com.  Amy created her blog to talk about her running, training, and races that she does, so as not to bore her husband, who apparently doesn't love running like she does.  I am so inspired by Amy because she has not always been a runner.  She started running a few years ago and realized that she was born to run.  She is one of those really fast people who is just naturally fast.  The first race I ever did with Amy was the Wasatch Back Marathon Relay.  It was one of the hardest races I have ever run.  I'll tell about it later.  Anyways, I loved running with her, and just 3 days ago, I ran on the Wasatch Back Ragnar Relay team that she put together.  It was AMAZING!  I had so much fun and we had such a great team with awesome mother runners on it.  We were a group of 12 mothers, with 36 kids between us.  Our team was called "Stoked on Socks" because we had some awesome socks.

 I was runner #10.  My first leg of the race was 3.1 miles through Huntsville, UT.  I ran my first mile pretty fast because my adrenalin was going crazy.  My first mile I ran in 6:37.  My 2nd mile was 7:10, and my last mile was 7:38.  I ran the whole thing in 21:41.  I actually had to slow it down on the 3rd mile because I ended up beating our van to the exchange point, and Amy had to run an extra 1/2 mile or so to meet up with me so I could make the exchange.  During this leg, I had 24 kills (which is how many people I passed), and wasn't passed by anyone. 

My second leg was in the middle of the night.  I started running at 2:40 AM in Coalville.  I ran 7.59 miles in 57:52, averaging about a 7:37 min/mile pace.  I was running on a slight incline the whole way.  It actually wasn't too bad, but it was pitch black, with no moon, so I had a hard time seeing what was ahead of me.  I ended up having 48 kills, and was passed by 1 guy.   

Having a dance party during Emily's leg

My last leg was the beast.  I ran the "Ragnar" leg, which is what the race is basically named after because it's the hardest leg ever!  It is basically 4 miles of straight hill.  During this leg, you climb from 7228 feet of elevation to 8906, which means that you gain 1723 feet!  There were a few times when I thought I might die.  My hardest mile was the 1st, because you basically just jump out of your van and start running uphill.  I ran the dang thing in 45:35, which means I averaged a 10:59 min/mile pace.  I guess this is fast because I had several people cheering me on up the hill, and at one point, a guy stuck his head out the window, looked at me, and said, "I've never seen anyone run up this hill like you."  I ended up having 30 kills, and only 3 guys passed me.  Well, I didn't die because I had my team cheering me on...giving me water...dousing me with ice cold water...giving me words of encouragement...and basically getting me up that hill.  That's what I love about running!   I ended up being the 4th fastest woman up the Ragnar leg, out of 52. 

Running up Guardsman

Van #2

My sister-in-law, Emily, also ran with me.  She was runner #9.  She had a 11.6 mile leg, and she also had the first part of Guardsman (which was also very uphill).  She did awesome!  Her last leg was so fun to watch because there were several other people that we were cheering on.  One of them was an older gent named Ken.  He ran great and we would always get out of our van, have a dance party, spray him and others with water, and cheer them on.  Ken basically gave us the unofficial "spirit award". 

Our team did so great and we ended up finishing in 31 hours, 10 minutes.  We were 3rd in the women's open division out of 53 teams!  However, we were first in team spirit and fun-ness:)