Zion Trail Ragnar

Ragnar gets its own post!!  What a fun weekend!  We drove down Thursday, set up camp and snuggled in for something of a night's rest.  It got so, so cold that night!  We set up the boys in their own little tent, and layered them up good, and kept them in their tent the next morning until the sun was well up in the sky and had dried out the cold dew.  It was so cute waking up to them talking in their sleepy voices:  

Max: Pace, how many days have we been sleeping?

Pace: Just hours, Max.

We threw a bag of donuts and some chocolate milk in their tent, and they were in heaven

Friday morning before the first wave started.  I was very impressed by how organized the event was, how well run, trails well groomed and well marked.  It was a great experience.

Rallying the team Friday morning with homemade granola, grab bag goodies, and a review of runner order and who to tag and when after your leg.

We set up our tents in the perfect location--somehow, no one else was around us, we were close enough to the bathrooms for convenience but far enough away for smell and foot traffic, and we were within sight of the playground the boys could run and play at.  They had a great time camping, playing and running around, and eating whatever they wanted (that we had packed) whenever they wanted!

On an 8-person team, each runner ran each of the 3 loops once.  There was a green (easy) 3.5 loop, a yellow (intermediate) 4 mile loop, and a red (hard) 7.3-ish mile loop.  Each runner ran the loops in different order; I was runner 3, and my order was red, yellow, green--it was the perfect order for me!  My running buddy is ready to head out, and I was so excited to get to run!  The photos don't really do justice--the views were beautiful and trails great.

Red loop?  What red loop?!  I felt great!

Took a few minutes to rest...

Got a free 8-minute massage from Nick the magic man.  I told him my piriformis and IT bands needed help, and he did a great job!  Too bad we couldn't take him home with us!

David was runner 8 and after waiting for all of us to have fun on the trails, he headed out on the yellow loop first.  He was so anxious to get out that he started too fast and cramped up a bit, which made the run very uncomfortable!

I headed out on the yellow loop right as the sun was setting, so my "night run" leg wasn't too dark!  It was so fun seeing Ragnar Village in the distance, and finally get close enough on the way back to hear crowds cheering again!

My final loop was the green one, in the early morning hours.  I had miscalculated when the runners ahead of me would be coming in, so I woke up around 3/330am, but didn't head out until almost 530 or so!  I had some good time to roll, fuel, and use the bathroom before heading out.  I went out in the dark, but the sun was starting to rise when I finished, so great!

And just like that, I was done with Zion Trail Ragnar!  A little later, I took a shower and put my feet up waiting for David to finish!

David was our last runner, so we were all waiting for him to cross the finish line!  His last leg was the red loop, and we thought he'd be done around certain time, but weren't sure based on his previous muscle cramping.  We headed down to the finish line, thinking we'd have another 15 minutes or so to wait for him to finish.  The boys and I were walking down and David came crashing out of the forest trail!  I grabbed the boys and tried to get them running so we could run with David to the finish line, but a) Pace started flipping out and crying because he'd had it in his head we were going to wait at the finish line for David, and wanted to follow through with that plan, and b) Max started crying because he got left behind 5 or 6 steps when we all started running but he didn't.  So David turned around, picked up Max, and ran with that screaming boy all the way to the end.  I held Pace's hand and half-dragged, half-yelled at Pace to just keep running.  Meanwhile all the crowds around us are cheering and shouting because they think it's so cool David's kiddos are crossing the finish line with him.  Haha!  It was a great way to finish!

On to collect our medals and get our team photo!  Love that the medals spell out a message that you need them all to line up to read--you really couldn't finish this event without your team!

Pace and Max did some Ragnar artwork when we got home--I love Pace's tent and fast runners!  And we got the coolest shirts ever!  This was definitely a Ragnar I want to do next year--but I want to find an all-female team to do the ultra event!  It's a 4-person team, and everyone does each loop twice...sounds like so much fun!