A big thanks to Wasatch Running Company for letting me on the team and giving my some great stuff to wear during the race.
My next leg came as dawn was approaching. A long leg of 17.5 miles mostly on the rail trail heading back towards PC. After some missteps identifying Allie I was off, but this time there were actually people to catch and we had put 12 minutes on our rivals as Allie had started her leg. The first 4 miles were along the side of the road clipping along right around goal pace between 630 & 640. Then as I got onto the trail I got passed, thinking it was our rivals I dropped the pace and right then I rolled my ankle. But I pressed on and gave chase as best I could dropping low 6's along the way. But he kept pulling away, when I got to the next exchange point I saw him standing there wearing an Orange number, woops I guess he wasn't on the team we were worried about. Then after a quick decent out of town it was back to the rail trail. At this point the sun was out and it was about 5-10 degrees colder than the first half of the leg. I was just rolling along now easing back to running between 6:20 & 6:30 miles really looking forward to the next person to catch. As I handed off to Trent I had gotten 92 people, 17.5 miles in 1:52:30. Then we got to our last major exchange point and started to get ready for our last and most challenging legs. I stretched and rolled out my legs and went to lay down in the shade. It was very pleasant and then a car stopped on the curb and the contents spilled out around me and jabbered on and on, eventually I talked to them for a little bit and then headed back to the car. I kept looking at the mountains knowing I would have to climb up, not the most fun time I could imagine. I was also reflecting on the fact that I had never looked at the mountains with such disdain. But Allie got the slap bracelet and was off, we stopped to give her some water at the first exchange point then we went to my exchange point. I took a gel and got all spiffed up to proceed on a death march up a mountain, neglecting to grab another to take with me. This year the Ragnar brain trust said "Hey you know what? What if we made the first mountain leg one mile longer, but make it flat so it's ok" Well it went ok, but with a giant climb coming up the less you run beforehand the better. The run was just as steep as I though it would be, but the goal was just to keep running, and the other goal was to catch 107 people to being it to a cool 200. The first half went pretty well, I caught over 80 people and kept running the whole time, Trent and Allie stopped to cheer me on once but they had to skedaddle up to the top with all the traffic. There were plenty of people out cheering and spraying runners whether they wanted it or not. As I got to the first exchange I passed an actual runner who was walking and urged him on, because hey someone else has to run too, right? Well then people watched me as I stupidly ran through the exchange zone to try and climb another 1500'. By this point some of the switchbacks were just out of control steep so I power walked for the first time, but was probably going a little faster than running. The first mile of the second leg was probably one of the longest of my life, but I was still catching people, but about 2 miles in I was just running out of energy. So I was walking the really steep parts and running when I recovered a little. The last half mile really stunk, the teammate of the guy I urged on passed me while I was walking and then a girl passed me, but then inexplicably started walking when the finish line was in sight. Myself, seeing that I was almost done climbing this accursed mountain, ran it in and encouraged her to do the same saying you can finally crack a beer once you're done, but she replied she already had a diet coke earlier. Utah, go figure. Reaching Trent I took off the slap bracelet and after two failed attempts to straighten it out just threw it at him, ducked under the ribbon and took a little break. Allie waited for me to gain some composure and accompanied me back to the car, where I set layed hunched over with the bumper keeping me from collapsing. Allie go me a gel and I quickly consumed it and immediately started feeling better. D'oh, that probably would have been a little less awful if I had taken that gel with me. But valuable intel for the next time I do a crazy climb after two hard runs. We think we won the Ultra division, but we will find out for sure once the results come out, 24:01 for the total time. 8.4 miles in 1:18:43 and I passed 116 people exceeding my goal!
Stolen from Allie: wasatch back relay with the wasatch running center ultra team. first
place in the male ultra category and 9th overall with a time of 24
hours, 1 minute, 4 seconds. One last thought, Ragnar does a very good job putting on an event. This is not a race, seeing as a group of people running twice as far as needed can get in the top ten. As for a party I don't really get it. Unless yelling at people in a lot of traffic is fun, but you can do that at rush hour everyday. If I want to have a good time running then I'll go out for an easy run with people so we can chat and not run alone, then do something actually fun after we have all bathed.
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