After the Las Vegas Ragnar in October, teammate Shannon Downs started making plans for the So Cal Ragnar because that's where her parents live. 6 of us from the Vegas team were on the So Cal team. It was supposed to be 7, but Thatcher dropped out at the last minute. We had to find someone quick, and I almost got Marathon Dreamer to do it, but Shannon being team captain, overruled me and got her friend Joshua. The one guy I did recruit to the team was Brian Sickles (B-Sick). He was one of 5 troubled teens that lived with us for a few months growing up when my dad was a bishop. (I only say that because I'm hoping some day he'll read this.) Shannon, Joshua, and Brian were in my van. The other two members of our van were Nate and Alyssa who rode with me from AZ. We had such a fun time! 
My first run was the hardest run I've ever done in my life. You would think my marathons would be considered my hardest runs, but no. (Wait, is hardest runs an oxymoron?) It started out at Yorba Regional Park, about 15 miles away from Disneyland. It was a scorcher of a day. 103°. And I was scheduled to run at 1:30pm, right in the middle of it. It was not about running at all. It was about survival. I filled my bottle up with Gatorade and applied two layers of sunscreen. At first it wasn't too bad. There was decent shade cast by the fragrant pine trees. There were happy little ducks and squirrels everywhere. There was a great view of the Santa Ana River. But once the pine trees ended, it was like Glen Frey said, "the heat is on!" I took it nice and slow (seems to be a system that works well for me lately).
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I got passed by three guys wearing prison uniforms. Their team was providing water and Gatorade for them all along the way. At one point they stopped to hydrate with their team, and I passed them up. After a while they passed me again. I took two Shot Blocks every two miles. The first water station was at 2.5 miles. I was still doing all right at that point, but the heat was getting to me. Not just the heat. The hills. I had trained in the heat. I had trained in the hills. But not the two together. At mile 4 I had to stop and start walking. Holy crud! I wasn't even half way done! I kept on going and made it to the next water station at mile 5. They suggested I put ice cubes in my hat. Ice cubes in my hat? Thank you, yes! I had to walk again. This time a little further than last time. Mile 6 was a tough one. I'm sure I walked about a quarter mile. It's just that I didn't want to die. I knew there was another water station at mile 7.5. We had driven by there earlier and saw a man with breasts the size of volleyballs. As I trudged my way to this freak of nature I began to question what the heck I was doing. I'm not a great runner. Sasha thinks I can run a marathon under three hours, but he's wrong! Maybe this should be my last Ragnar. Anyway, I made it to the water station, and luckily there was a new set of volunteers. One of them offered to dump water on my shoulders. It was wonderful. I knew there was one last hill, and then all downhill. I tried to see if I could run up it. Nope. So I did the best I could. Then a lady named Jean caught up to me. She had an English accent. And we helped each other get to the top. There we saw a couple of ambulances. One of the prison inmates got heat stroke. They said he was delirious and he almost ran out in front of a truck. At that point I was glad I played it smart and took it easy for the entire 8.8 miles. I finished strong, and my team said I looked great. Little did they know. My next leg was 3.7 miles with 700 feet of elevation rise. I was looking forward to this because it is identical to Usery Pass. I wanted to redeem myself. And redeem myself I did. My pace was a minute/mile faster than I projected. I felt great!
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There was a fog that had settled in at my start point. After 1.5 miles I must have climbed enough to where I was out of it and I the first thing I saw was a shooting star. Very cool. There was a guy that I named "Night the Light" that passed me. He was fatter than I was, but was running great. I caught up to him later, and we ran together for a while talking about how much of a suck fest our first leg was. We got to a stop light where there were no cars except for a van. I said, "Let's go for it!", as we jayran through the intersection. He put on a good surge to finish, which I couldn't match, but I didn't care. I felt so good, and was ready to tackle my last leg. I was worried about the heat again, but Mother Nature provided overcast and fog all day long. Some of the people in my van were disappointed because it wasn't as pretty as it normally is, but I couldn't have been happier. Now I felt confident I could run my last 7.1 miles without too much problem. I didn't even take any water with me.
View Larger Map Wait, did somebody say high humidity? As if I need help sweating! Holy buckets of sweat, Batman! When I was done I went back to the van and took my shirt off. This girl from another van was walking by. I told her, "This may be the grossest thing you've ever seen," and I proceeded to wring the sweat out of my shirt in front of her. She gagged a little. Anyway, back to the run. The first 1.75 miles was pretty flat. Then I knew a steep downhill was coming up. A guy with a purple bandana was following me. We passed one guy that was taking short choppy steps. He may have been on to something because we were hammering it and just killing our feet. Purple yelled out, "My feet are on fire!" My Garmin registered me getting down to a 5:13 mile through this part. After that I hit some more uphills. I was able to power through them just like on my night run. This is when the course became a veritable obstacle course! First I came to this bridge followed by four flights of steps. Four! Then I had to weave in and out of the masses of people at the beach. Then there was the zigzagging around the boardwalk. Then more stairs! But you know what? This was the prettiest scenery I've ever had in a Ragnar. I saw the waves of the ocean, surfers, cliffs, rocks with sea hundreds of sea gulls, the smell of their poop. It was an awesome leg. With a mile to go a guy passed me that looked familiar. I couldn't remember his name so I yelled out, "Mesa!" He kinda barely glanced back but kept going. Then I caught him at a stop light. It was Br. Chandler that lives a couple of blocks away from me and is in my sister-in-law's ward. We shook sweaty hands and ran together for a while. The last little bit was a pretty steep uphill, so I said goodbye to him. I couldn't finish on a sprint like I would have liked to have done, but I got there and was happy. I think everyone else had a good time even though Nate had never ran 11 miles in his life, but busted it out strongly with none of us to cheer him as he finished, and I scared my teammates as I jumped the van through the open doors of a box cart on a high speed cargo train so we wouldn't be late to the exchange between Joshua and Brian, and Alyssa had to wear the moist wrist band every time after me, and Shannon had to manage a team riddled with jack Mormons. I got to spend some time with some of the guys on the team from California after the race. They're all pretty cool. Who knows. Maybe we'll see some of them on the blog soon. 11 Ragnars. That won't be my last. 
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