Go, you chicken fat, go away!

Nice and slow.  Just trying to get a few miles in and not injure myself by overdoing it.

Mike wanted to pick me up at 5:30am this morning.  I was fine with that.  I set the alarm for 4:40am and hit snooze a couple of times.  I sat on the toilet for about half an hour.  I got some out, but not nearly enough.  I packed some TP, grabbed a towel, my butt lamp, my headlamp, and two bottles of water.  I told Mike yesterday that I was contemplating having him drop me off at the top of Usery Pass and I would just run home.  That would be about 10.3 miles.  But since Ragnar is less than a week away, I thought it would be best to do some more uphill running.  So I told him let's do the same thing we did last week.  On the drive down we saw 3 horses and 1 pony.  It was dark, but they were pretty close to the road.  They were on the side that we run up.  I hoped I would see them while I was running.  We got to the Sheriffs' station and started to stretch out.  We both had to poop.  We were twinners.  So Mike found a roll of TP in his truck and I used my stash.  I was annoyed at how easy it came out now.  30 minutes on the toilet and barely anything.  30 seconds in the woods and, well, you don't want to know.  Anyway Mike took off thinking I had already left.  So I flashed him.  With my headlamp.  He waited for me to go around the barb wired fence so we could start together, but he immediately left me in his dust.  I was running faster than last week, but so was he.  That's a good sign.  There were lots of cars and cyclists again so I employed the same strategy as last week to move off the shoulder whenever they would zoom by.  I saw a few runners, but not nearly as many as last week.  Maybe because we started earlier?  The run was good, but I never saw the horses.  When I finished Mike was talking with some guy and the parking lot was full.  Apparently a mother and her daughter went missing on their hike yesterday and they were forming a search party.  I hope they find them and they're ok.  Mike said he saw the horses when he was coming back down.  They had crossed the road to the other side.  We slowed down to look for them where he had seen them, but they weren't there.  I kept looking though.  Then I spotted them behind some brush.  We pulled over and took pictures.  Pretty good morning.

Just a few nice and easy miles to keep my legs fresh for Ragnar this weekend.

Ragnar #26.  This was a fun Ragnar.  I was slow, but I never needed to stop.  That doesn't mean I didn't stop; I just didn't need to.  What made it really fun is that one of my favorite (now my all time favorite) blogger's, Tracy, flew in from Illinois to run with us.

We had a start time of 6am.  We have to be there an hour early to go through safety training and pick up our gear.  It takes an hour and a half to get there.  So we should have been on the road by 3:30am.  The plan was for me to pick up Mike and his daughter, Megan, swing over to Glen's father's house and pick him up, head over to Tracy's cousin's and get her, then cruise into Scottsdale and get Kristie.  Tracy texted me the day before to ask what time I would pick her up, and I said 3ish.  The night before I was up until 11pm trying to finish a work project and finishing packing.  I went to bed, but I couldn't sleep.  I don't think I fell asleep until after 1am.  My alarm was set for 2:40 am.  I got up when it went off and quickly jumped in the shower.  That's when I realized I had told Tracy 3ish, and it was 3ish.  So I texted her and told her what a Ragnitiot I was.  (Ragnitiots was our team name this year.)  I picked her up first, then Mike and Megan, then Glen, then a bag of ice at the convienient store, then another bag of ice because that wasn't enough, then some Arthur Fonzarelli hits to my headlight that wasn't working, and finally Kristie at the Target off of the Loop 101 in Scottsdale.  We were now running a little behind.  We got to the start line at 5:30am.  The first thing I did was run to the porta-johns.  As fate would have it, when I exited the honey bucket, Tracy was next in line.  I held the door open for her and told her that it was already stinky in there before I got in.  That was the first time she told me I was "so disgusting."  It warmed my heart and I knew it was going to be a good Ragnar.

During the safety training I overheard the announcer calling for our team.  I looked at Mike and said, "That's us."  One of the volunteers saw my concern and motioned me over.  She said, "Here are three important rules I need to go over with you and you can go get your gear."  One of the rules was do not follow runner #7 when they leave the exchange or it's an automatic disqualification.  Runner #7 was in the other van, so I didn't pay it much mind.  We quickly grabbed our stuff and checked in with just enough time to take a picture.

I have no idea why my belly button is glowing.  Maybe alien resurrection.  Our group, which was about 20 runners, took off, and I quickly found myself in 15th place.  One by one, they all passed me.  I mentioned this a few weeks ago, but I have never wanted to run Leg 1.  It's a beast.  But I committed to it and even did a practice run 3 weeks back.  My pace 3 weeks ago was 11:55 min/mile.  I figured I would run at least that pace, probably faster.  However, the lack of sleep was causing me stomach cramps.  They weren't terrible, but they certainly slowed me down.  The first mile and a quarter is slightly downhill, and I kept it nice and easy, saving my energy for the uphill.  I got hosed at the stop light, just barely missing it, and had to wait for both phases (east and south crossing.)  Had I not just barely missed it, I would have been caught up with a couple of the runners.  Waiting there I realized I was in last place, unless someone started walking a long time ago, which I highly doubted.  This was the only time I stopped during the race, which is a moral victory.

After finally crossing, I started the ascent.  The cramping was still there, but I just pushed through.  There's no van support for the first 4 miles, so I finally saw my van right at mile 4.  They asked if I wanted water and I told them I would be fine for another mile.  After the mile Mike asked if I wanted to take the bottle with me and they would meet me at the finish.  I asked him to stop one more time at the top of the hill, which would be at 6.7 miles.  Right around one hour and 5 minutes into my run, I could hear someone coming up behind me.  Knowing I was averaging around a 12 minute pace, I figured that if they started half an hour before me, they must be running a 6 minute pace.  It was a girl.  I said, "Wow!  You must be running a 6 minute pace."  She laughed and said, "I haven't seen a soul in ages."  I said, "Well, I'm very glad to accommodate you."  She didn't really look like she was running a 6 minute pace, so I figured she probably missed her start time like we almost did, and just started late.

My van was stopped at 6.2 miles (not 6.7.)  They handed me the water bottle and I began the hardest half mile of the race.  It gets real steep here, so I just put my head down and headed up.  After the hill, I was averaging a 12:20 pace, but I got it down to a 12:15 pace by the time I finished.  That's 20 seconds slower per mile than 3 weeks ago.  Around mile 7 I started getting passed by runners from the next group.  I want to say about 5 of them passed me.  But I also passed three ladies that must've started in the group before us.  That was nice because those were the only people I passed the entire race.

With a little under a mile to go, I saw my van driving back toward me.  I waved and then put my hands up like, "What are you guys doing?  I know I'm slow, but surely you don't think I died.  It wasn't too long ago that you saw me."  When I finished, Mike told me that they were heading back to the start line because we forgot our slap bracelet.  Oh, you mean the slap bracelet that I've been wearing for the last 8.7 miles?  Hmmm...what a bunch of Ragnitiots.  I called Tracy and had them turn around.  The remainder of the runs for our first legs were all downhill.  Everyone did good, including Tracy who was running around noon when it was starting to warm up.

We went to the motel and I was able to get a couple more hours of restless sleep.  Mike received a text message from race headquarters that we had been issued two violations.  One more and we would be out.  Apparently the other van did indeed follow the runner out of the exchange #7.  Instead of disqualifying us, they gave us two violations.  Mike was mad, but we managed to follow the rules for the rest of the race. My next run was at 8:15pm.  Rebecca had just finished up her 11.5 mile leg, which earned her the special medal.  This was 4.3 miles flat.  The only problem was that I thought it was my 4.0 mile leg.  I estimated my pace to be 11:00 min/mile.  My first mile was 10:09.  A little too fast, as I started to slow down after that.  As I was approaching 3.8 miles, I started speeding up, just a tad, thinking I was almost done.  But that finish line just never showed up.  After a while I started getting angry.  Ragnar has been known to be off on their mileage before, but I didn't think they'd be off by this much.  I finished at an overall pace of 11:01.  When I realized it was my fault for mixing my final two distances up, I couldn't be mad at Ragnar.  In fact, I was happy that I only had 4.0 miles to go.

Tracy hands off to Victoria, Rebecca's daughter.  At some point during her second run, she stepped on the edge of the pavement and twisted her ankle.  She was done for the race.  Bryan, from her van, took over for her.  Back at the motel, I got another couple of hours of sleep in and it finally felt like sound sleep.  My last 4.0 miles was up in Anthem; mild rolling hills.  I estimated my pace to be 11:30, but it was 11:52, and I didn't care.  It was 5:40am, which means all of my runs were night runs.  I'm ok with that, too.  I was just wanting to be done.  The rest of my van finished their legs, but we had planned on running Victoria's final leg.  Tracy had just finished up 6 hot sucky miles.  They really sucked, or so I hear. Victoria's final leg was 5.1 miles.  Throughout the whole race we kept leapfrogging these two ultra teams that were wearing bunny ears the whole time.  They were running together, always a man and a woman.  We decided we hated them and made it our mission to pass them.  Knowing they had just come in a few minutes before Tracy, we were off to the chase.  Glen ran the first mile.  He then handed off to Kristie who ran the next two miles.  She came close to catching them, and was a bit upset when she realized how close.  Mike ran the final 2.1 miles, and he caught them!  Was it cheating?  No.   Maybe.  Was it cheap?  Yeah.  But that's ok. 

So, we were done running, and just had to wait for Van #2 to finish.  Kristie's husband picked her up, and the rest of us drove back to Mesa to go home and shower.  I got another hour nap.  Now I was really missing Emily who had stayed the night at our friend's house because one of my other daughters, Katelynn, had her birthday party the night before at Castles and Coasters, and it would have been too hard to keep an eye on Emily.  Since our friend lives less than a mile away from Mike, and since Mike's other daughter and brother-in-law were coming with us to the finish line, I decided to pick her up.  I really love her, and for the most part she behaved herself.  She took this picture of me and Tracy.

There was a petting zoo at the finish line which kept her occuppied for a little bit.  I bought her some mac and cheese.  Then we waited for Rebecca to finish so we could run across the finish line together.  Another Ragnar done, another sticker to add to my window.  Thank you team.  Thank you Tracy for coming down.  Thank you to my wife for staying up all night and decorating the van.  Can't wait for the next one.

Even though Ragnar is over, Mike still wants to run on Saturday mornings.  Fine by me.  But this was my first run since Ragnar.  Mike picked me up at 5:30am.  I was able to get my business done beforehand, for once.  But he asked to use my bathroom.  I made him use the one that only gives you one ply at a time and you have to hold the handle down until all the water empties out. 

It was foggy out.  That means humidity.  That means sweat.  Mike got out in front of me like he always does.  The nice thing was that I could still see his LED light briefly right at mile 2.  Traffic wasn't too bad today and the drivers seemed courteous.  Right after mile 3 I heard the horses on the other side of the road.  Of course I had to cross to go see them.  This is where this entry is no longer family friendly.  One of the horses was trying to mount the other.  She wasn't having it, so she started bucking and she kicked the "happy" horse right in the chest with both back legs.  I took a couple of pictures and then my glasses started to fog up. 

I had made up my mind that I would turn around when I saw Mike coming back.  Because I had stopped, he was a little more ahead of me than what he usually is.  So it was right at 4 miles when I turned around.  He caught up to me and I asked him if he had seen the horses.  He said no, and I told him that they were about a half mile down.  I kept my eyes open, but as I was going down, a cyclist was coming up and he spotted them and pointed them out to me.  I'm sure I would have seen them anyway, but appreciated it.  I stopped again and took more pictures as it was a little more light out.  Now Mike was way ahead of me again and I never saw him for the rest of the run.  About three quarters of a mile before the bottom there were two girls running up.  They said good morning and then the one closest to me looked down right as I put my hand up for a high five.  Desperately I yelled, "High five!"  She felt bad for missing it.  Oh well.  Then about a quarter mile from the bottom I saw pieces of shredded tire all over the road.  The largest piece was right in the middle of the bike lane.  I kicked off to the side without losing my stride.  A cyclist was zooming down and I heard him yell, "Thank you."  Turns out he was coming straight back up once he got to the stop sign, so he made sure to thank me again as we passed the second time.  It was a nice run, but I need to get out more next week. 

Oh, and this next weekend is the Phoenix marathon, half and 10k.  Sasha and two of his boys will be staying the night at my house.