12:30 pm 72 degrees Legs 3/4 Very hard/Easy
12.1 miles 7:14 avg pace, 13 kills
Very hard hilly run. I started right at noon and it was flippin' hot. I pushed myself really hard on this leg thinking I would take it easy on the next one. When I finally finished I had to wait a couple minutes for my runner at the exchange. seriously? Apparently she didn't expect me to run so fast in the heat. It's all good, we're just doing this for fun at this point :) For what it's worth, I managed to keep from getting passed by anyone.
10:00pm 60 degrees Legs 15/16 Hard/Moderate
10.8 miles 6:56 avg pace, 23 kills
This was a fun leg. Although it was brought to my attention that we were now in competition with the Ultra Kuhl Runners, a Tacoma area family ultra team in the Mens Open division. I decided to step up my game a little for this :) It was much cooler and sub 7s actually felt pretty good. It was pitch black outside within a few minutes of my start except for the little red blinkies on each runner. There were a lot of long straightaways where I could see little red bouncing targets in the distance. I did my best to reel them all in. At exchange 15 I set my sights on a fresh runner that got out in front of me and I didn't catch him until about 50 yards short of the next exchange. I was working really hard to catch this guy and we passed a lot of other runners in the process. In the end, I finished ahead of the UKR and still haven't been passed :)
9:00am Legs 27/28 Easy/Very hard
10.5 miles 7:25 avg pace, 18 kills
UKR was slightly ahead of us again so no time for messin' around. There were 2 monster hills on this leg and I passed lots of hill walkers as well as Kimberly from UKR on the second hill. I was so happy to finish my last leg without getting passed and help keep our lead on UKR. Seriously, I was sooo glad it was over... only, it wasn't over...
4:25pm Leg 36 Moderate
4.7 miles 7:07 avg pace, 8 kills
We lost runner #6 during his 2nd leg so I have these 4.7 bonus miles at the end. Eric and I had to split Rob's last double leg. We had also lost our lead on UKR by about 16 minutes. We picked up a few of those minutes by the end of leg 35, but I wasn't quite sure how far ahead of us they were at this point.
With two more hills on this final leg, I was sure I could catch up a little, but how much is enough? It's hot again, and my bowels are acting up, this is not good. I ducked into the POP just a few minutes before I had to run. After taking care of my business I spent my last couple minutes at the exchange encouraging another runner that "it was all downhill from here" or at least the hard part is over at exactly 2 miles in. There was a nice looong 2 mile downhill stretch after the first steep hill and then a little half mile incline to the finish. I ran a couple more sub 7s coming down that hill before I really slowed down. That last half mile was a killer! I felt like I was crawling. The team was waiting for me at the gate when I got near the finish and we all ran through together and were greeted by the Ultra Kuhl Runners who had finished about 2 minutes ahead of us. Lots of hugs and handshakes later it was time for pizza and cold ones before the long drive home.
Thanks to my running teammates: Tracey, Justina, Lesley, Eric and Rob! Volunteers: Kurt, Kristy and especially Rusty who gave me his spot on the team due to his injury. These are some truly awesome people and I can't think of anyone I'd rather spend 30 hours running 200 miles with. I hope I can do it again next year!
Results are up and we were the only Mixed Masters Ultra team so we won our division and should be getting an award for that soon. I'm not even sure if they do an awards ceremony at the event. None of us had any idea we would collect anything other than our finisher medals and a pizza. It also looks like we were the first Mixed Masters Ultra team to ever complete the Ragnar NWP. I don't know if that will get any recognition or not, but I think it's pretty cool.
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