Ragnar 2012

This is Ragnar....Wasatch Back 2012

197.4 miles

Logan to Park City

 You must decorate the car.  Kass and Braden are adding the final touches to the Yukon.

 We are van 1.  Erika, Caitlyn, Dean, Randy, Mike and Braden.  Janna and her family are in van 2.

Thursday evening, we headed up to Logan.  Caitlyn has an awesome friend that let us sleep on his living room floor.  

We had to be to the start line at 4:45 a.m. for a safety training.  

Mike decided to take it a step further, and wear a helmet to the safety training.  According to Mike, "you can never be too safe".  Yes, everyone that saw him thought he was "special", including us!!!

 Caitlyn got us our flags.  You have to use the flag anytime you cross a road to support your runner.

Our start time was 5:45 a.m.  Dean is runner #1, and he is about to run 7.7 miles, with a rating of "Very Hard".

Dean hands the slap bracelet off to Caitlyn.  She will run 7.6 miles, with a rating of  "Very Hard".

 Caitlyn was awesome!  She was lucky enough to get her hardest run out of the way right at the beginning.

 Dean giving Caitlyn water.  

 On our way up to Logan, we stopped by Burger King, and got us each a lovely crown!  

 Braden coronating Caitlyn as king.  (yes, this is in the middle of her run)

 Now is that the cutest king ever?!

 What Mike, 4 hours of sleep wasn't good enough?

 Look who we found!  Dean's niece was also running this race!  So fun to see Tali.

 Caitlyn finishing, and here is Mike starting.  

Mike gets to run 6.8 miles, with a rating of "Moderate".

 Mike hands off to me, and I get to run 4.3 with a rating of  "Moderate".  It was uphill, but not bad.

...but for some reason, the heat really got to me.

 I was so happy to see Braden ready with water to pour over my head!

 When I finished, I handed off to Braden.  It was supposed to be to Randy, but Randy had a pulled hamstring, so we made Braden do the uphill, and Randy ran Braden's downhill.

Check out how cool the water running off the back of Braden's head looks.

 Braden was running 7.8 miles uphill!  The rating they gave this leg was "What the Hill?!"

Doesn't matter that Braden ran a full marathon less than a week before this, we still make him run the really hard runs!

 Yes, Dean sleeps while he drives.  Here's proof!

 Next up is Randy.  He gets to run 6.5 miles, rating "Hard".

 Yay Randy!

 This picture gives you an idea of how tall Randy really is!  It was almost impossible to find a place to put this 6'8" body in our Yukon!

Hey, look who we found!  Tad was helping with the safety training.  

I'm not sure he was that excited to see us.

Each team is required to provide 3 volunteers.

Check out the guy in the middle in the white shirt.  He decided he wanted to get in on our picture.

Trevor was also volunteering at the safety training for van 2.

At this exchange, Randy handed off to Drew, and Janna's family took over from here.  They will be running for the next 4 hours.  

We met Amanda at a splash park in Ogden.  She was awesome.  She and Dex had lunch for us, otter-pops, drinks, treats, everything we could want.  (She was supposed to be running this with us, but since she is so sick, and busy building 2 little babies, she decided to opt out of this race.  Thank you Randy for stepping in at such short notice!)

 Dean and Braden used the splash park as a shower....gross!

 For some strange reason we noticed these cute little twins!  It was so fun to watch them, and try to imagine what life is going to be like for Mike and Manda in a couple of years.....so cute!

 Thank you so much Manda and Dex!  That was such a fun break!!!  Now time to get back to running.

Dan handed off to Dean around 4:30 p.m..  Dean ran 8.6 miles, with a rating of "Very Hard".  If it was "very hard"  why is he still smiling?

 Here is Caitlyn (in the crown) ready to take over from Dean, and she will run 2.8 miles with a rating of "Easy".  She deserves an easy run after that last one she had to do.  As it turns out, this wasn't as easy as we expected.  It had several hills, and running this in the heat of the day....not thinking it was that easy!

 Caitlyn handing off to Mike (see the orange slap bracelet on Mikes wrist?  That's what we hand off at each exchange)

 Mike is running 4.9 miles, with a rating of "Moderate"

 Next up is Ej.  I get to run 4.2 miles, with an "easy" rating.  This was a real pleasant run.

 In the picture below, I'm handing off to Randy.  Notice that I'm carrying a water bottle.  A little girl gave this to me on my run.  It was nice and cold, but I didn't have my water belt, so I just had to carry it.

 Randy taking off on his 4.2 "easy" run.

 These two bucks were watching the runners.

Braden is required to wear a reflective vest, head lamp, and butt light since he starts his run after 8 p.m.

 The hand off.  Braden will now run 8.2 miles, with a rating of "Very Hard".

 We got to run through some of the most beautiful areas in Utah.  This is an awesome course.  Not easy, but really pretty!

 This is the view we had as we approached the dam at East Canyon.  The elevation climb on this one was horrible.  Glad Braden had to run this one!

 Time to hand off to van 2, and we head up to the cabin to get some sleep.  Amanda met us up there, and had yummy food ready for us.  

We got up there at about 11 p.m., and had to get up and leave around 3:30 a.m. to get to the exchange in time to meet up with van 2.

 Sorry, no picture of Dean on this one. It was at 4 in the morning, so we were just trying to spot him, too hard to try to get a picture too! He was running 5.0 miles with a rating of "easy".  When he finishes this, he is done!  

Dean handed off to Caitlyn.  She ran 3.3 miles with rating of "easy".  That smile on her face is because she is now done also!

 Mike is up next.  He has to run 7.5 miles, with a rating of "Hard".  

 Mike got to run though the town of Francis, seems appropriate since his last name is Francis, and passes by Jordanelle Reservoir.   Amazing scenery!  Now Mike is done.

Mike hands off to me, and I get to run 6.3 miles with a rating of "very hard".

There was a split in the trail I was running on, so I just followed the runners ahead of me....bad choice!  Soon there were no more signs, we had taken the wrong path!  We all had to backtrack.  That was kind of a bummer!

 This is my final handoff!  Pretty happy to give this slap bracelet to Randy, and know that I don't have to put it on again.....until next year!

 Randy's last run was 2.8 miles with a rating of "easy".   We barely had time to get to the exchange before Randy got there!

 We love the "Honey Buckets".  Definitely an important part of the race!

Randy is now done!

Braden starts his last run of 2.5 miles with a rating of "easy".

Braden hands off to Trevor, and we are done!

 Good job Van 1!  Finished and with no injuries!  We count that as an awesome race!  (not to mention we didn't lose a single crown!)
Now Janna's van has to run for the next 6 hours.

Some of us went back to cheer on Van 2 at the finish line.  

Dean, Ej, Braden, Janna, Dan, Trevor and Ryan

Caitlyn, Shelby and Kassidy 

(missing Mike and Randy)

Dean, Caitlyn, Shelby and Dan

Mike, Ej, Braden, Kass, Janna, and Trevor

(missing Randy and Ryan)

Showing off our race shirts and finishers medals!

That evening, we met up with the Christensens and compared stories!