Go, you chicken fat, go away!

3 miles up Usery Pass and 3 miles down.  626 feet climb and descent.  I was less than a mile from the top when I decided to turn around.  Gotta play it safe with Ragnar Del Sol this weekend.  I don't feel bad about it.  I only saw 3 cyclists out this morning.  Seemed like a beautiful day for a ride, but maybe everybody was at work.  Or they all went for a long ride yesterday (President's Day and were tired.)  I really have to watch the traffic as I'm running.  At least half of the vehicles on this road are towing some sort of a trailer behind them.  I don't trust trailers.  Good run.  Felt good.  Think I'll do all right at Ragnar if I take it nice and easy and pace myself.  I had a breathing treatment before I ran.  I'm about due for another one.

Slow shakeout run.  Right around 11.5 minute per mile pace.  I'll take tomorrow off and be ready for Ragnar on Friday.  Ugh, I have to get up at 2am to get there on time.
 

Ragnar #20.  Wow.  That's a lot. 

I joined my old bishop's team which had many of the same runners as the 2012 Las Vegas Ragnar.  Last year's Del Sol race was such a disaster in my mind because of the bronchitis or pneumonia that I had, that I thought it would be a better idea to be on a team with people that aren't quite as fast and competitive.  No offense to any of them that read this.

It seems the team got finalized at the 11th hour.  I was beginning to wonder if it was even going to happen.  Our team name ended up being - We'll think of a team name later.  Which is kind of funny, but seriously, that was meant to be a placeholder until we actually thought of a team name.

My van consisted of me, two of bishops's sons, Bryan and Brandon, his daughter, Stacey, a young kid from the ward, Jason, maybe 15 or 16, and a guy that nobody had met until about 3 days before the race, Irving.  Irving ended up being our star runner.  Pretty fast guy, a bit of a strange duck, but he was cool.

I was runner #2.  I had the least amount of miles in my van.  And I was ok with that.  Truth be told, it was probably the easiest set of legs, too.  Again, no complaints coming from me.  Irving was runner #1.  His first leg was over 8 miles and mostly uphill.  I'm pretty sure he averaged around a 7:40 pace.  He handed off to me.  I had to run 5.53 miles all downhill.  I took it nice and easy.  It was tempting to run hard and see how fast I could go downhill, but I knew I had two more legs to run, and after 19 Ragnars, I think I've learned how to run them.  It was just after 7am, and the weather was beautiful.  I had to wear my night gear (reflective vest, headlamp, tail light) even though it wasn't dark out.  I actually had to wear the night gear for all three of my legs.  Small price to pay for not having to run in the heat.  I remember thinking that every Ragnar leg should be like this one.

Leg #2 was at 8pm.  I decided not to wear my hat because the sun was down.  I wish I had worn it because you can't feel the headlamp with it.  I was feeling great, but the further I got into the run, I realized I was starting to crash.  The distance was only 5.19 miles, and I think it might have gotten ugly if it was any more than that.

My last leg was 4.63 miles.  I started at quarter after 7, so the sun was up, but it was nice and cool.  This leg was all uphill.  It wasn't too bad because it was only 100 ft/mile as compared to Usery Pass which is 200/ft mile.  So I knew I would do all right if I kept a nice easy pace.  It's kind of nice just to go out and enjoy running instead of trying to go as fast as I can like I've done in the past.  I had a good time and enjoyed the company in my van.  Brandon hurt his ankle on his second leg, and Irving picked up his last run for him.  Our team finished somewhere between 34 and 35 hours.  I'm looking forward to next year, when I will do my 10th Del Sol relay.