What is the Ragnar Relay?
It's a 195 mile race that begins at the Valley of Fire north of Las Vegas on Friday morning and ends at the Redrock Hotel on Saturday. You have a team of 12 runners who divide the 195 miles into 36 legs, each runner taking three legs. A friend of mine texted me about 14 days before the race and asked if I wanted to fill in as a runner on her team. "Heck yes" was my response before I found out which legs I would be running. Well, I was going to be running two 7.2 mile legs and one 4.4 mile leg, all of which were rated hard. Yikes! But the morning of October 22nd came and I hopped in the suburban with a bunch of strangers and headed out to begin an adventure of a lifetime. I had a pretty good case of butterflies going before running my first leg but once I started running the adrenaline took over and it was amazing. The scenery was gorgeous and it was fun having my team driving beside me routing me on. The second leg I ran was around 10:30 that night and my little sister Stephanie came out and ran it with me. We geared up in our headlamps and reflective vests and hit the road. It was fun having her along and keeping me company. Thanks Steph! We tried to get some sleep that night before our morning runs but it was near impossible. There's nothing like being completely sleep deprived and slap happy as you set out on an all uphill 4.4 mile run on dirt/gravel . When I got back in the car after finishing my last leg I was seriously overcome with a feeling of elation! I was pretty darn proud of myself for completing my portion of the race. It was then time to relax and wait for the rest of our team to finish up so we could cross the finish line and head home for showers and much needed sleep.
We had a few bumps along the way; sick team members a couple injuries etc but everyone did great and I was so glad to be apart of a team filled with such great ladies!
And yes, I will do it again next year if they ask me!
