2011 Wasatch Back Relay leg 11

Something only an idiot would try unless they were escaping some sort of bizarre flood that had waters rising up to 6,000 feet above sea level.  3 miles up Trapper's Loop road in Huntsville, UT with an elevation gain of just under 1,000 feet.

Even though my pace was slow, 11:11, I am logging these as fast miles because I was running as fast as I could.  This run started out flat and I was able to catch my first roadkill about 200 yards out of the gate.  It then turned uphill.  As I turned onto Trapper's Loop road, I was supposed to cross over to the right side of the road, but the two people in front of me turned and ran up the left side.  I was confused and followed them, but the traffic cones were set up to give us a lane on the right side of the road.  After a while, I decided I needed to be over there and ran over when there was a break in traffic.

I just tried to steadily climb the road.  There was a girl in front of me quite a ways that I focused on catching.  She eventually caught up to another girl and they were running together when I caught up to them somewhere around  mile 2.  I stayed just behind them for a while because it was too hard to go around them.  I eventually ran between them and left them behind. 

It took a lot of mental power to keep running up--and while the last mile marker on a Ragnar Relay leg is always a welcome sight, it didn't feel like I was anywhere near the end of this one when I came to it.  On my last mile I kept looking at my watch hoping to make better progress.  I wanted to be done.  Then I decided to figure out the distance between traffic cones--which was about .05 miles--and knew that I had 6 left to go.  At some point, towards the end, a woman passed me.  When I got in sight of the finish line I knew I could finish strong and I picked up my pace to pass her back just before the end. 

After the run was over, I saw a girl walking up towards her van exhausted and crying.  I pointed at her and told my teammates, "She feels like I do."  That was probably the most difficult run I had ever done at that point in my life, but it felt good to look back down to the valley and see what I had done.

Just the facts

2011 Wasatch Back Relay leg 23

A 5.5 mile sunrise run from Wanship, UT to Rockport State Park.

This run was supposed to be my easy run.  It wasn't very far and it wasn't anymore uphill that what I usually run--though it had a decent climb on the second mile.  The scenery was beautiful and the sunlight was just starting to appear at 4:51 am when I started running.  However, all my teammates were asleep in our car so I had to help our previous runner find it after he handed off to me; the exchange was extremely crowded and parking was a mess; it was very cold; and I felt like I was going to throw up. 

The feeling didn't leave until after I finished running and fell asleep.    I could see my breath as it would pass through the rays of light from my headlamp.  This was the coldest I had ever been running a Ragnar leg.  While it was nice to run with the sunrise, the sick feeling kept my pace down and it made the whole run laborious when it should have been easy.  My overall pace was about 10:05 and I was so glad to get this one done. 

As the driver, I had stayed up pretty much the whole night and when I got back in the car after this run, I fell right to sleep.  I guess we drove to the next exchange and parked and then the driver just went to sleep.  I woke myself up with a loud snore and decided I better get out and go find the exchange so I could let the other team know we were there and see Stacie finish.

Workout data

2011 Wasatch Back leg 35

A slightly uphill 1 mile run followed by 6.3 miles of sheer downhill terror.  Up and over Guardsman's pass from 8,881 feet to 8,963 feet and then down to the parking lot at the base of Deer Valley--not at all the way most people get down that mountain.

Crazy.  I warmed up with 1 mile running up over a mountain at just under 9,000 feet.  I felt pretty good as I passed a guy just prior to crossing the summit.  All my hard hill running in the past month was paying off.  Then the insanity kicked in.  Just set your treadmill to a speed higher than you can run and stay on it for about an hour with a plastic bag on your head.  Only this was more dangerous.  If I fall off my treadmill, I stop falling when I hit the floor.  If I had fallen off of this thing, I certainly would have kept rolling all the way down to Park City--which at some points might have been tempting if I was meeting the next runner in Park City, but I wasn't.

This was a run that had looked like a lot of fun on paper.  That is, of course, because I was just looking at the slope on the elevation profile and not at the altitude.  The worst part about this was the lack of oxygen.  I thought the worst was going to be the beating my body would take from running sub-8-minute miles down a mountain.  As it turned out, I only had one mile under 8 minutes.  The first two runs, lack of sleep, and lack of oxygen got to me and it was a real struggle to run down that mountain.  I really wish that I had had more time on my mountain bike this spring to prepare for this, but the weather just wouldn't cooperate. 

Workout data

2011 Wasatch Back Summary

All-in-all, it was another crazy running adventure.  Out of the five years I have done this, this was the most difficult.  I was in the best shape I have ever been in, but in less than 24 hours, I ran the two most difficult runs I have ever done.  I was a little disappointed last night, but as I thought about it more, I've started to feel good about it.

I was not training for this event.  I was training early for the St. George Marathon with the idea that I could get into marathon shape by now with time to gradually increase my mileage over the summer so that I can be very well prepared when it is time to run the race.  This would allow me to better handle a setback like not running for over a week due to sickness that had derailed my plans to run a marathon in the past.  If I look at this relay race as just another step in my marathon training, it was a wild success.  I got some great extreme training in that I can't see myself purposefully repeating.  While I am sore in some strange places, I'm really more worn out from the lack of sleep than anything else.  I don't think I can say that about previous Ragnar Relays.