outdoor adventure

"Ragnar was a 9th century Norse King. He was a pirate, a raider, a conqueror, an explorer, and a wild man. The tough, fearless, rugged attributes of this Norse King are shared by all who participate in a Ragnar Relay. In much the same way, a Ragnar Relay provides runners the freedom to roam, to explore - a free-spirited curiosity to get out there and experience outdoor adventure."

--from the ragnar website

I have been on a race hiatus for a year-and-a-half, but I was talked into running this crazy 170-mile, 2-day relay race with all my running friends. This is another race I hadn't done yet and wanted to cross off my list, like the marathon I ran two years ago--been there, done that, don't have to do it again.

This is the first half of our team, and we were van #1. No, we aren't posing by our van.

This, below, was our sweet ride. It was very comfy and very fun.

leg one--Suzie

leg two--me (through the south part Cache Valley--it was so beautiful)

leg three--Kim

leg four--Julie

This is what it looked like at one of our exchanges--crazy!!

And there was always a line for the "honey buckets"

We ran through the most beautiful countryside, from the Cache Valley (above)

to the Morgan Valley (below).

leg five--Nan.

She ran a killer run, almost 8 miles, uphill, on a very dusty dirt road

leg 6--Gerie.

She ran the backside of the dirt road

After Gerie was done and handed off to van #2, we got a much needed break and got some real food. Then we went up to wait at Snowbasin where I met up with my sister, Brenda. She was running on another team, and she totally kicked butt!! Seriously, she ran a 9-mile run, uphill, in one hour and 20 min. At night. After that, we met up with most of our other friends from van #2. The bummer about this race is that you don't really get to see your friends in the other van much.

Just finishing my second leg in the evening through the north part of Morgan Valley. We finished our second round just after midnight and went to the next exchange to sleep and wait for van #2. We finally crashed out in the van around 2am, and tried to get some sleep until we were woken up around 5am. I slept in the drivers seat, which was actually quite comfy. It was better than sleeping out on the grass.

This was the only time our two team vehicles were together.

They got even less sleep than we did.

My third leg was Saturday morning, and it was a beautiful run through Heber Valley.

This was the sign everyone looked forward to seeing.

It was nice to be able to relax once our van was done. At the exchange point with van #2, there were showers, so we cleaned up a bit before getting some food (Mexican--yum!) and headed to the finish line.


Van #2 didn't make it to the finish line in time, and they were too tired to care, so we ran across the finish line with Rochelle, got our medals, and finally headed home. We had such a great time together--thanks girls!!

These are some of our memories from Ragnar--some team names, vans and participants I am not able to

include in this blog post, because, after all, it is a family-friendly site!! Kind of. ;)

Will I repeat? Perhaps, yes.

p.s. Most of the photo credits go to Julie--thanks for bringing your sweet camera and taking so many pictures--it was nice for me to catch a break. And, I don't think I've been in this many pictures for years!!