This is a video of my friend Stephanie Nielson (Nie Nie.) You may have seen it before. Almost two and a half years ago I captained up two Ragnar teams from my work. My coworker, Nate Mecham, invited Stephanie to join one of the teams. I was on one team, and she was on the other, but I got to know her briefly and see how fun she was. After running the Del Sol race she joined another team to run the Wasatch Back race. Shortly after that is when she and her husband survived a terrible plane accident which changed their lives forever and impacted the lives of hundreds of thousands of others.
I had run the Wasatch Back Ragnar Relay once before in 2007 with Nate's wife Becky in my van. A few months ago, Becky and Nate invited me to join the team they were putting together to do Wasatch Back for their friend Stephanie. Of course! Anything for Nie. Our team name was Running 4 Nie, and Ragnar donated our entrance fee to the Nie Recovery Fund.
Most of the runners on the team were friends with Stephanie or knew her from church when she lived in Arizona. It was great getting to know all of them because they are all great people. When you run a Ragnar relay, your teammates become lifelong friends.
As I made the preparations for the trip up to Utah, a lot of weird coincidences occurred. I will refer to them as WC#X. First, Nate and Becky offered me a ride because they were staying with people in American Fork. I knew bloggers Scott Wesseman and Toby live in American Fork, so I asked them if either one of them could put me up for a night. Scott said that he couldn't, but if I wanted he would allow me stay in his parent's condo in Midway. Later, the Mecham's plans changed and they could no longer offer me a ride. But Sundee told me I could ride up with her, and that she was staying in Midway. It turned out that the Wesseman condo was only three quarters of a mile from where Sundee was staying. (WC#1)
I made arrangements to stay with blogger Kelli after the race. I rode up with Sundee, her mother Roberta, and her daughter Aimee. We listened to songs from Glee all the way up. That should make Jun happy. We had to drop off Roberta in Riverton first. I told Roberta that I was staying with Kelli after the race, and lo and behold she knew Kelli! (WC#2)
Sundee's dad is a partial owner of a lodge up in Midway. He has water rights to some of the natural hot springs. They have tapped into this geothermally heated H2O and they fill up a pool in the yard. We soaked in the hot tub Wednesday night and saw a deer come wandering by. It was lightly sprinkling, and the cool rain felt good on my face as the natural hot water drained all the moisture out of my body. Thursday, Sundee, Marci (Becky's sister and Sundee's sister-in-law), and I went on a small run to try and get acclimated to the higher elevation. We went shopping for supplies, and I was able to lounge around most of the day. Then we headed up to Logan to stay the night. We met Nate, Becky, and Nate's sister Marja at the SLC airport. I saw Donyell Marshall there. I pointed him out to Sundee and Marci. Marci didn't know who he was, but she took his picture anyway.
The family we stayed with in Logan was so nice. They were an older couple, and the wife had some spaghetti-in-a-crock-pot waiting for us. It was 10pm, but we ate anyway. I had bought 4 Thank You cards for the people that helped me out during my time in Utah. I ended up giving one to this couple with the hope that I would pick one up for Lindsay, who was my ride home, but I never did. Lindsay, if you read this, I'm sorry I gave your card away.
Everyone else was in Van #1, and we had a 6am start time. That meant they had to get up at 4:30am to get there on time. Even though I got to sleep in, I still got up to see them off. After a while I heard hooting and hollering coming from outside. It turns out the Leg #1 of the relay went right in front of their house. So part of the race went right down the street of this house I stayed at, and another part of the race went right by Sundee's father's lodge. (WC#3)
Lindsay picked me up in the morning and we headed to Layton to meet the rest of our van. We had about 6 hours from the time Van #1 started until Van #2 needed to start. Before we headed off to the first Major Exchange, we went to WalMart to get Gatorade and water. That took longer than we expected. Now we were rushed to get to the exchange, and we still had to take the safety training class they require all team members to go to. Fortunately, nobody on the team cared if we had to wait a little bit. We weren't running to try to win or place real high. We were just trying to have a good time and do it for Nie.
 In this photo is Thatcher, me, Sheldon, Lindsay, Lexi (I mean, Alexis :P), and Natalia. Lindsay ran first for us followed by Natalia. They both did great. Next were our two stars Sheldon and Thatcher. Then came Alexis. Her first leg was up the steep climb through Snow Basin, and she thought she pulled a muscle. However, she's uber-tough, and she gutted it out. Not only that, but she seemed to get faster on her subsequent legs. Then I got to run the rest of the way up Snow Basin as the anchor leg. This was a 835 foot climb in 3.1 miles. I took it nice and steady. My avg. pace was 10:14. I killed 17 people, and was killed twice. However, both of those kills I killed back later on. (Confused much?) Anyway, the first one to pass me was a tall 14 or 15 year old kid. As he was going by, the guy driving his van yelled out the window, "Beat the old man!" I looked around to see who he was talking about. Oh, it was me. Hmm...I couldn't argue. About ten minutes later he apologized for his old man comment, but I told him it was true. I felt like an old man in both body and spirit. However, I was gaining back on the kid who I knew had gone out too fast. Not much later I passed him, and when I saw the driver again I yelled, "Who's the old man now?!!"
After our first set of legs, we hung out at the second Major Exchange for a bit, while some of my teammates got massages and others got adjusted by chiropractors. I heard an angelic duck voice call my name. It was Kelli. I shot the breeze with Kelli, Walter, and Misty for a while. Then we headed off to the third Major Exchange where I showered up and got some food in my belly.
Our next set of legs were our night legs. Everyone did fine including Sheldon on his 9.6 mile leg that he had to go, you know, 1 mile into it. He toughed it out. Or toughed it in. Not sure which. But I took him to the Honey Dipper Buckets (porta johns) after he was done. I didn't have to go myself but I never miss an opportunity to go if it's there. So I went up to a Honey Dipper that showed it wasn't occupied, and without knocking, I pulled the door open. I was met by a blood curling scream. It was so surreal that it didn't even scare me. I almost stood there and asked if she was for real. I mean, come on! Lock the door! Clearly, she wanted me to open it. Anyway, I told everyone that I no longer had to use the Bucket, if you catch my drift, and she came out, ducked her head, and ran away. Getting back on the subject, which is me running, I did my night run which was 6.5 miles and another 558 foot climb at a 9:05 pace.
Now that our night runs were over, we drove to the next Major Exchange so that we would be there without any problems when we had to run again. The first thing I did was grab my bag so I could go shower again. (Carolyn knows why.) My plan was to snuggle up in my blanket and snooze a little in the van after the bodily cleansing. One little problem. The van was locked, and most of the team was sleeping inside. I didn't want to go looking for them, nor did I want to wake them, so I propped my bag up as a pillow against the side of the school and fell asleep for a little bit. I woke up shivering cold, but hey, it's all part of the Ragnar experience!
Van #1 was almost done with their portion of the race, and we were only 20 minutes behind my projected schedule. However, it was getting hot, and I knew my projections on Van #2's last legs were way too aggressively optimistic. Everyone did great though, especially Sheldon and Thatcher who had to conquer "The Ragnar" hill up into Park City. Man those guys are animals. Both of them said that it was the hardest thing they've ever done, but if the had to do Wasatch Back again, they would want the same legs. Lexi was feeling much better and little did she know, they added an extra mile and a half to her leg. She just cruised right on through looking like she could go another 10 miles if she wanted. Then I took the baton for the very last leg of the race, 5.1 miles with 387 feet downhill, then 430 feet uphill. I started out feeling pretty good. The elevation was high, and my breathing was labored, but my pace was right where I wanted it. Then at mile three it all caught up to me. Hello stomach cramps. I've missed you. Wow I was struggling! I knew I was almost done, but man these hills were getting old! I forgot about the Gu Chomps in my pocket. I don't know if they would have helped. I just knew I was so close, and the rest of my team had come so far. I felt like I'd be letting them down if I didn't give it my all. I plugged along and finally saw the finish line. There was my team waiting for me. Wait a minute. There was half of my team! The other half, my van, had not even got there yet. With 1000+ teams, it was so crowded that it took them over an hour to get to the parking lot, ride the gondolas, and meet us there so we could all run in together. Of course we weren't going to cross without them, so we waited for about 20 minutes until they made it. What an accomplishment for a team that only had 5 runners participate in a Ragnar event before.
Ah, the trouble with Ragnar is, once you're done, it's over. You slap each other high five, take a group photo, have a group hug, then that's it. You leave. But you never forget the good times you had over the last 32 hours.
Kelli's team finished just a few minutes after us. (WC#4) We drove back to her house near Riverton, and I thought Lindsay was staying in Layton again, but nope. She was staying in Riverton (WC#5) The final weird coincidence (WC#6) was when Kelli posted a picture on FaceBook of one of her teammates running by Marilyn from my team's Van #1. Look Kelli. She's right there on the end of the team picture!
Anyway, I was exhausted, but Kelli planned a little blogger get together much to my surprise and delight. I got to meet 4 more bloggers in real life, not counting Scott who I'd met three days prior.
Top (left to right) - Scott, Toby, Misty, RAD, Jun, Kelli, Jose. Bottom (left to right) - Walter, Steve, me. I think the best part of the race was when people would come up and say, "Oh, I read Stephanie's blog all the time." But this was a close second. Thanks Kelli!
Sunday was Father's Day. Kelli made me a nice eggs and potato breakfast. I know she won't believe me when I say, but it was truly delicious. I rode home with Lindsay and her family and got to spend a little bit of time with my family in the evening. It wasn't the best Father's Day ever, but it was one of the best races ever. And one thing Stephanie has taught me is to live life to the fullest. Thanks everyone for allowing me to do so.
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Scott has the manliest and whitest smile you have ever seen. Take a look. I could stare at those pearly whites all day.
