Work will win when wishy washy wishing won't

I took a few days off of running since the half marathon on Saturday.  I figured with Ragnar this weekend I ought to give my legs a break.  Tom, Jansen and I went down to St. George for a couple days to finish up the details for our 1 bedroom condo.  It's all ready for renters now and I already have a week and maybe 2 - 4 more days that are being asked for in June.  I think this is going to be a fun little addition to our family.

This morning I was planning on an easy 7 with Tom.  But his easy and my easy are not always quite the same.  I could tell in the first half mile that I was having some hamstring issues that surely didn't want to make worse.   So I told Tom to go on without me and I went to find the faster of the "Iwannarunna5K" group.  Their pace was just right for me to have someone to run with that wasn't too slow or too fast.  It was nice to catch up with LeAnn and Colleen.

Yesterday our girls found out their parts in the summer play they doing.  It is Alice in Wonderland.  Tani is the Cheshire Cat and Tia is the DoorMouse.  They are both excited to have some more drama fun! 

.

How do you even try to write about something like this without writing a whole book?!  This was my first experience as a runner in the Wasatch Back Relay.  I have volunteered for Tom's teams 2 or 3 times so I have been able to see it from that angle, but running it and being a part of a team is a whole new angle!

Tom and I were on a coed master's team officially named Spanish Fork Running Club #2 but self proclaimed as "Run like Hal" after our team captain and great runner Hal Amos!  We were with the very first teams to start at 5:00 am Friday morning.  So with the early start and Hal and Tom being the runners right before me passing people I was never around more than 2 people throughout most of the whole race.  I was also the only legs with all three runs that I could not have my van support on. 

As I waited for Tom to come in and hand off the slap bracelet I all of a sudden started feeling a bit nervous.  I've never been on a team with running before.  It's always just been for me, not a team.  Tom handed off to me and I was off.  I knew this was going to be uphill most of the way.  I wanted to run it without walking.  I did it.  The first mile was a bit too fast to help me love it to the top but I made it.  The first mile had some level at the beginning and then up hill the rest of the way. Mile 1 8:54, Mile 2 10:38, Mile 3 11:39, last .16 11:06 AP: 10:26, Overall time: 32:57. I was happy to be able to pass people on this leg.  I think I passed 5, and one sandbagger (or speedy guy on slower team) came flying past me.  After this leg there were never many in my area to pass or be passed.  I was pretty happy to see my team and especially Doug who would now start running!

Leg #23 started just before midnight.  I was nervous about running in the dark and getting lost out there.  When Tom handed off to me at this exchange I could tell he was really worried about me going off on this.  I found out later that his leg had really creeped him out.  See his blog for the details of that. www.tom.fastrunningblog.com  It's good I didn't have time to listen right then, I just started off into the dark night.  Luckily while I was running the big, full moon came up over the mountain and was absolutely gorgeous for me over the water for my whole run!  

This leg had lots of memories for me....While I was still starting to get use to running in the dark on my own I was going up a hill concentrating when I hear a man's voice yell out to me.  I can't even remember what he said but I let out a scream!  He was on the other side of the road in the dark and scared me to death.  I'm pretty sure he was cheering me on, but it creeped me out because there wasn't suppose to be any vehicles stopped along this road. Then I started hearing phlegm boy behind me.  It was about driving me crazy, I couldn't wait for him to pass me.  (for two reasons...one so I didn't have to hear him behind me anymore and two so I would have someone in front of me so I didn't feel so alone.)  He passed me and got enough ahead of me that I didn't have to worry about him spitting all over me but I could keep him right there to follow.  This was also "Skunk Row". Holy cow!  I thought for sure I was going to be sprayed and I wouldn't be allowed back in the van!  I could smell skunk pretty much the whole run.  My favorite memories are of the beautiful scenery that followed me through this run.  The moon, the water, the mountains....I just kept wishing I were an artist who could go home and paint the scenes I was seeing!  This turned out to be an amazing time for me....one of those runner high times!  Even after getting back into the van my teammates could tell that I had a great time on that one!  Mile 1 8:53, Mile 2 9:20, Mile 3 8:29, Mile 4 8:05, Mile 5 8:02, Last .55 7:27  AP: 8:27 Overall time: 46:56

After getting a few hours of something we tried to call sleep we were up and running again.  It was fun to cheer the team on again.  Especially Hal on "you've got to be kidding me" and Tom on Ragnar.  They are both awesome runners and did great on these hard legs!  It was very fun to watch them Run Like Hal!

At the end of Tom's leg I was there waiting for the exchange with the funky snow sculptures and abandoned snowmobiles.  I got a nice salty kiss from him and started up the rest of that hill thinking this was the only part of this final leg that would be up hill.  (I was wrong).  I got up feeling good and started letting it go on the downhill.  However, it was very downhill so it was scary.  I didn't want to 1.go rolling down the hill or 2. trash my knees.  So I was trying to run fast but keep in control.  I could hear someone behind me flying down...I just hoped he wouldn't run right over me!  He went screaming past me and I never really saw him again.

 Then I could hear one more person behind me.  He ended up passing me on that downhill then I passed him on some flat, then he passed me on some down then I passed him on a major uphill.  I thought he would pass me on the last big down hill but I had won the battle!  I came in plenty before him!  I am glad he was around though because I would have been completely alone without him.  Mile 3 had a hill I wasn't expecting and I had to walk a bit there.  My team happened to be able to see me feeling a bit frustrated there and tried to cheer me on a bit from the van.  Then they saw where I was going to have to climb a huge hill that I REALLY wasn't expecting and they tried to wait there for me for a minute to cheer me on.  They were'n't suppose to stop much on this road so it was kind of tricky but they knew I was going to need a little cheering.  However, I don't think I accepted their cheering in a very happy way when I was having to go up that hill.  I wasn't feeling the love and I wasn't giving the love back either.   It was here that I passed that guy again though.  And now that I think about it, he passed me one more time after this on a down hill but then I passed him one more time before leaving him for good.   I never saw the "one mile to go" marker on this so when I saw the people who were calling my number into the finish line I was pretty thrilled I was almost done.  It was fun running fast into the final chute!

 Mile 1 9:10 (uphill) Mile 2 7:06, Mile 3 7:23, Mile 4 10:04, Mile 5 7:42, Mile 6 7:23, Mile 7 7:15 and the final stretch (last .08) 6:08  AP: 7:59 and overall time 56:30

Passed to Doug and the rest of us hit the shuttle to the finish line.  Van one went home when they were done so we ran through the finish line looking like an ultra team ha ha!  Then the next cool thing was to see the clock that said our time was 23:39:29.  How cool is that?  Except that it was 6 hours wrong.....they had us with an 11:00 start instead of 5:00.  So our real time is 29:39:29.