Ragnar Relay Adventure

Hi girls! It's been a while since I've blogged...lol, well, honestly, it's been a while since any of us have! So...hopefully this will start a trend again!
I had an awesome adventure recently that I definitely wanted to share with you guys! I got to run in the Del Sol Ragnar Relay! It is a 204 mile relay race between Prescott, AZ and Mesa, AZ. Each team has 12 people.

There were 3 teams that went from the Institute here in Tucson. My team was called Team S.A.M.U.R.A.I. (Singe Adult Mormons Undertaking Ragnar Are Insane). We started at 10 am on Friday, February 26th and ended Saturday, February 27th. Your team is divided into two vans with 6 runners in each. Each runner is assigned three legs throughout the entire race. So Runner #1 starts and runs their leg, then #2, etc. til the first van is finished, then the second van meets up with them and starts their legs. Each runner passes off this wristband to the next runner on their team. You just keep going, through the day, through the night and then through the day again until everyone has run all their legs and you've finished the race! I was Runner #7 so my legs were classified as follows:
1st leg: Moderate, 4.3 miles
2nd leg: Very Hard, 8 miles
3rd leg: Moderate, 3.7 miles
I trained a lot for it-I had definitely never done a running thing like this before. I was expecting my first run to really be no problem. Unfortunately, it was at the highest elevation, which I definitely had not trained in and it was definitely hard! It got me way nervous for the rest of the race-especially the 8 mile leg I was going to be running that night! When all of our van had finished their first legs we went to the house of a brother of one of our teammates to try and sleep for a while before waking up and running our second legs in the middle of the night. I could not sleep for anything! All I could think was that I was going to go out in the cold, in the middle of the night (probably around 1 am) and run 8 miles along the Arizona highway-crazy! And then it occurred to me that I hadn't asked for a blessing before embarking on this whole crazy adventure-what was I thinking?! So...I wrestled with that thought for a while in my sleeping bag and then crawled out, went and found one of my friends and asked him for a blessing before my next leg. He gave me one and I am so glad. I didn't fall back asleep, the other van was running faster than expected and I think I ended up starting the 8 mile leg before 1 am. Lol, when you run at night they make you wear a reflective vest and reflective lights on your front and back side. I had also donned some pink leggings under my running shorts to try to be warmer-not planned, but definitely the fashion statement! I was ready, had my playlist on my ipod, pink leggings, family praying for me and a blessing to boot. I started out pretty slow and steady. I told my team to meet me at the halfway point which from the map looked like where the course would start downhill (the first 4 miles were uphill). I felt really good that first 4 miles and my team captain met me at the 4 mile mark to encourage me along. Unfortunately, that hill never stopped! It kept going the whole 8 miles! In the end, most people said they liked their night runs the best. I can now see why. Even though it seems crazy at the time, once you are out there, there really is a stillness and you realize it is just you and the road and the Lord. Its kind of a neat time and there was definitely a prayer in my heart the whole way!
After I finished my second leg and our 8th runner took off, they stopped all the other runners and vans on the highway because there had been an accident. Apparently, one of the runners was hit by a drunk driver. We have since learned that he died. So sad. There was pretty much massive confusion for a while. Imagine its 3 in the morning and you have hundreds of cars and runners along some highway in Arizona. Finally a little before 6 am they had all teams start their 1st van of runners on their final legs. So, a significant chunk of the race was skipped for 4 of the runners in our van but we worked it out so that they ran for some other teammates, etc.
My final leg was the shortest and I remember looking at the map seeing some hills, and one big hill before the last mile which was completely down hill. At this point I had not really slept in over 24 hours and most of the time I had been munching on food but had kind of stopped after the night run. That last hill was a beast! Seriously, I came over the big one before it and just gasped when I saw it. I saw some people start walking at the top of it. Again, I decided just slow and steady but I was NOT going to walk. It was tough but some of the boys on my team pulled their van over to cheer me up that hill and I am so grateful! I made it and it was so amazing to have accomplished that! 16 miles and an incredible team and absolutely awesome experience! Was it crazy? Yes! But would I do it again? Yes!!
Sorry, this is sooo long, its the first time I've written about it and got all excited again. Hopefully, it was entertaining. I'm including some pics so you can see how we all cheered each other along the way, etc. Oh, and link to the website...
http://www.ragnarrelay.com/index.php?option=com_dynamicpages&Itemid=35&page=legMaps&raceName=delsol&paceID=4&leg=7#legmaps

P.S. I wanna hear about Randilyn's triathlon!

P.S. 2 Thanks to all of you for your recent help! I love and really appreciate that I can still always count on all of you!