On June 4th, Maelie turned the magical age of 12!!! She is now a Young Woman.
Opening presents.
A new Young woman journal
Finger nail polish.
Her cake...
We had a crazy storm that broke 2 branches from our tree.
Getting her candles ready for her to blow.
On June 11th, myself and 12 other girls headed to Capitol Reef, Utah to run a 195 mile race!!! That first night before the race we had pasta and tried to sleep. The key word here was tried. I think I maybe slept 2 hours, from 5;30am-7:30am. Maybe it was the uncomfortable beds or the fact that I was on the wrong side of the bed or the fact that I was about to run alot and had major nerves or maybe it was the excitement of the whole thing. Anyways, that's about the amount of sleep, minus a 15 min power nap here and there, I got for the next 34 hours!
A beautiful rainbow on the way up to Capitol Reef.
My suburban was loaded! There were two vehicles headed up for this thing. We didn't take into consideration that I was driving the person in charge of all the running gear and the 2 people in charge of all the ice chests, food and water. We were jam packed.
The morning of the race (Friday, june 12), my van (which was van 2, the 2nd group to run) got a nice breakfast at the hotel to start off the crazy weeknd. It was a beautiful place to stay.
The first van started running at 6am. We started around noon or so. Here are the ladies in our van. Stevie, Jeanie, Rachel, Karen, Nancy, and myself. The gals in van 1 were Kendall, Christy, Sara, Tawna, Cassandra, Heather, and alternate Rozann.
Our 'costume' were the skirts and the shirts. We all wore the skirts for each of our legs we ran. We only wore our matching shirts in between our runs. We were the Blister Sisters, but many of the other runners started calling us 'the skirts.'
We decorated our car.
I'm about to start my first leg, the easiest of my 3. It was a 3.6 mile easy run.
I will say, although the weekend was brutal, it was very beautiful country to run through.
Nancy coming in. She was the first runner in our van. I was the 2nd.
Passing off the baton (or slap bracelet) to Stevie, the next runner.
Stevie finished and passed off to Jeanie. Jeanie was a speed walker. She was FAST!
The altitude and the heat were too much for Jeanie (she already had fainting problems we were aware of) so she nearly passed out, but did black out, so I finished about 1.5miles of her leg for her. It was uphill and hard!
Passing off to Karen.
Our last runner was our team captain, Rachel.
It felt good to be done with our first leg. Now off to rest. We had a hotel so we could shower. The 2nd van was going to use the hotel next. But, it's hard to sleep at 7pm when the excitement of finishing our first legs was around and it was just too early.
The two vans, minus Kendall who was the first runner in van 1. There was no stopping. 195 miles for 12 ladies without rest.
We rested until about 10:30 pm when we had to get up and run our night legs, leg 2. This was the leg I was most worried about, for fear of darkness and animals and because it was 6.5 miles of uphill running. Yes, all uphill. At the end of the 6.5 miles was an incline of and 8%grade. Eeek!
I started my run and it was really warm. After climbing 1400 feet in elevation, by the end of my run it was freezing. I think I started my leg around 1 or 1;30 am. I had pepper spray attached to my arm to use in case of bear, cougars, moose, etc. They were all in this area. I ran through Bryce and it was one of the prettiest places (we saw it on our drive in Thursday), but it was dark so the beauty was unenjoyed. I passed 3 or 4 people on this leg. When you pass someone, the Ragnar racers call it a kill, so all in all, with all my legs, I killed 6 people. There were only 41 teams running and some were only doing the 1/2 relay. We didn't see alot of people like Ragnars do, but it was nice to be able to stop and cheer on our team. On my 2nd leg as I was climbing a really big hill, I thought I had one more to go. I was pleasantly surprised to find that at the summit of that hill, my leg was done. I happily passed my slap bracelet off to the next runner. I was tired!
After our 2nd leg, it was light again. We didn't have a hotel so we attempted to sleep in the car. Not very comfortable. We were all so tired, but glad our 2nd legs and night run were over. I slept a little in the car. Mayber 30 min.
At the exchange we were parked at, they had a fire going so I sat around with other gals from our team and tried to get warm while waiting for the first van to come rolling in.
We started our third leg maybe around 11am? I really don't remember. This next leg I was really looking forward to. It was 7.5 miles with about 4 of the miles going downhill. Hallelujah. My reward for my crazy 2nd leg.
Nancy came in and she was all finished! Her 3 legs done!!!! It was nice to be done with the very last leg, but you couldn't really celebrate because you knew it would be hard for the other gals in the car because they weren't done yet.
Away I went.
Our other teammates from van 1.
I finished and gladly passed the bracelet over. I. was. done.
While Jeanie was speed walking, it started to rain. We were so glad because we knew without the heat and with a little cool rain, she wouldn't black out and she could run her last leg without help. Little did we realize that when the dirt got wet, it turned to clay and was impassible. We slipped and slid and got stuck in the mud. And it only rained for about 20 minutes!!!!
We knew from some others that it dried quickly and once dry, we would have no problems, but it looked like more rain was on it's way. We didn't want to be stuck on the mountainside all night. It's about 2:30 or so at this time.
People rallied together and we pushed one another out. it was scary because there was a cliff around the edge there. I refused to drive so one of the guys from the other team drove for me.
After about an hour of being stuck and pushing cars out (even 4 wheel drive vehicles were stuck) we finally got to our next exchange. Jeanie was long gone (rode out with someone else), but our next runner started her leg. We only had her and one other runner left until we finished the whole thing!
Here came Rachel, our last runner of the race! We finished in 34 hours. Like I said, there were only 41 teams, and only 3 of those teams were all women teams. We placed first among the women only team and beat many of the mixed teams as well!
Here are the people who helped us out of the mud. Without these helpers we would'nt have gotten out as quickly.
At our last hotel. We took a picture of all of us. Each of our shirts had our names on it, but in the picture, it's hard to see.
That evening we went in the pool and hot tub and soaked. It helped the muscles sooo much. We ate a nice hot dinner, got showered, talked with the other van about their times and shared memories, laughed and then finally went to sleep. I slept great that night. The next day we drove home in a really dirty, painted on, mud covered suburban. I was really glad it ran smoothly the whole time as it isn't really a reliable vehicle. :)
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