Wasatch Back

Months and months of preparation all led to this... Ragnar Wasatch Back 2012

With a few weeks to spare we got a full team and ventured out to conquer the Wasatch Back. I bought all the food and drinks. This is most of it loaded up in the car, it pretty much filled my entire car. So much food! So much liquid!

The totes of food for each car

My mom at her first exchange waiting to start her first run

Mom at the end of her first run

I'll tell you what, my mom went in to this completely blind. She had never run a race. She didn't look at the schematics of her runs and she didn't want to. I think she wanted to kill someone when she got to her second run and looked at the mountain in front of her (knowing that she was gonna have to run it). That wasn't the only mountain. Her second leg was hill after hill after hill and it was nearing midnight. We tried to follow her and support her the best we could but when it got close to the end and I asked her if she wanted water and she glared at me, I knew exactly what it meant. It meant, leave me alone and let me do this. Pure determination to get to the end of that leg!! I asked her after it was over if she thought that the race was easier, harder or the same as she expected and she said, "Definitely harder." She was sore and hurting, but she finished all 3 legs. Much of the family was there to cheer her on in her last leg through Heber so I think that helped her get to the end. I just want to let her know how proud of her I am. I knew going into it that it would be really hard but I knew she could do it. I hope that she looks back on it as a huge accomplishment. For me, running is all about the satisfaction of pushing myself further than I thought I could go. I hope you feel that same satisfaction, Mom. Congratulations on your first race!

My ragnar tatoo. I am a little bit sad that it washed off. I would consider having it permanently.

Since I was the team captain, it gave me freedom to choose my own runs. I gave it a lot of thought and assigned myself runs that I thought would be most challenging for me and yet fun. I may have picked wrong. Or I may have worn the wrong shoes. My first run was 7 miles uphill to Snow Basin Ski Resort. I wore my five finger shoes. I actually killed it during the run, especially one small portion that was downhill. I was running 7 minute miles. However, by the end of the run I knew there was a problem. My left heel was killing me. I could barely walk on it or put any pressure on it. I knew that the rest of the race would have to be done in my normal running shoes and I was scared that I wouldn't even be able to do it in those. My second run was basically flat for 5 miles. It was an alright race for being 3 in the morning. Slower than I hoped but I was able to work through the pain and do what I could to finish. The last run was 7 miles straight down hill into Park City. It was absolutely brutal! I was so relieved to be done with all three legs!

I'm pretty sure that it was achilles tendonitis due to the stress on my achilles from the first uphill run. It took about 2 weeks for me to walk normally. I'm almost ready to try running again and see what happens. Hopefully everything will be healed up, I wanna get at least a half marathon in by the end of running season.

Our team at the finish line- Great Job!

Jaime, Camille, Lori, Shayne, Ben, Brooke, Stephanie, Mike, Karli, Laura, Dan

 

I have now done the Wasatch Back twice. It was an interesting experience to be in the second van this time and see the differences. I think that there are some pretty big differneces. It was an incedibly hard but really fun race! Thanks to all my team members who made it a great race!

We finished in 34:31:56.3

My brother also ran on a separate team. His first big race. Congrats CJ!