Ragnar Del Sol 2013 Recap-Part 2

Best sleep ever! In a sleeping bag, on a tile floor. That is the level of exhaustion that we were all experiencing! It didn’t matter, though, because the experience was so amazing!

This is one of the fun, lit vans we saw  in the parking lot.

Next up was Bety, and look who surprised her!! Her man Craig! Such a sweetie!

This is me with my coffee trying to wake up and wrap my head around the fact that it is #1. Freezing ass cold #2. 3am and #3. I’m getting ready to run in the freezing ass cold at 3am!!

Go Bety go!!

We all could only hope he’d be the scariest thing we ran into that night…

Waiting for Bety on the flipside at exchange 19

Ali was like,”you ran how fast!??”

I was in total shock of this run! There were a couple of faster girls that started just ahead of me that motivated me to pick up the pace. I knew I couldn’t keep up with them with my lack of training, but also knew that I could maintain the speed I was going as long as I didn’t experience any pain. I didn’t! So I averaged an 8:47 pace for my 2.5 mile leg in the middle of the night! What a feeling of accomplishment

Next was Karla, then Lara:

All the while we’re now super sore and freezing our tushies off trying to cheer everyone else on:

The Stick was our new best friend!

Yeah yeah yeah, I know, an ultra Ragnar team sounds insane….but I am insane! So watch out kids, next year we might be doing it ultra-style! That is, as soon as I am no longer sore from this year’s race with 12 people, lol.

Next came Chris, then Jenn, then we were done with Round 2!

Speaking of Chris, she and her hubby are absolute angels! They had us over to their house to take showers and sleep on cots in the middle of their living room between Rounds 2 and 3.  That shower ranks up there with one of the top 3 showers of my life. That cot couldn’t have been more comfortable! Thanks again SO much for having us. Chris and Gene!!!

The only pic I got at Chris and Gene’s: 3 pairs of Asics sitting side by side

We woke up around 10:30 and headed on out to Fountain Hills to begin Round 3 and finish thing thing up! These are some of the magnets that teams had made to tag other vans with:

Note to self: make magnets next year!

One of my favorite vans: The Nerds!!! They have Pi written all the way around the van! Not to mention one of my favorite running quotes on the green sign

Good morning Team Dessert!

So great

I didn’t get a whole lot of pictures that morning of us getting ready to run.

Poor Bety and those hills!!

Go Karla!!!

Best.Van. Ever.

Fro Motion for me move it Fro Motion for me!

Lara getting ready to kick booty down the Green Belt

My favorite pic of them all: Welcome to the Gun Show

Go Chris!!

This was Jasmine, the puggle!

Jenn getting ready to bring it home!!!!

The team waiting for Jenn to cross the bridge so we could join her to cross the finish together

Grumpy cat says “good luck standing back up, ladies!”

Ran into my friend Bill who was volunteering

When we saw Jenn crossing the bridge, we all got up and joined her to cross the finish line as a team! Such a cool experience! We got our medals, and then got together for a team picture.

Megan and I at the after party

All this talk about cupcakes, and I never once had a cupcake during the race. I decided there would be cupcakes for dessert that night! There was just one problem…. you see, the red velvet cupcakes only came in packages of 6. I didn’t need 6 cupcakes laying around my apartment because I would eat all of them. So I gave 4 of them away to 4 lucky Girl Scouts selling cookies in front of Safeway, and made their night! Then I went home, devoured the whole pizza and both cupcakes. Self control happens at the grocery, kids. Don’t buy it, and you won’t eat it! They were DAMN good, though! I can’t tell you how much I slept for the next two days, because you might lose every ounce of respect for me that you thought you had. I did allow myself some time to relax and recover, though, and it was nice .

As for Ragnar, you’ve gotta do it! Like I said, it’s now on my “to do every year list.” Now, I want to do Hood to Coast. Anyone on a team that needs members?? I would love to be on a reserve list! I am already on at least one reserve list, but I’ll take more if offered!

I hope you have all enjoyed my recaps. Thanks so much for reading and I hope you all have a great rest of your weekend!!

Happy Trails!

Stacey