RAGNAR 2011

Warning: long post ahead!

We started our adventure Thursday night after my choir practice. We squeezed all 7 of us (me, Wes, Brooke, Kimri, Karen, Brittany, and Kendra) into the suburban, and we loaded up the car with all of our bags and food and strapped our bedding to the top. Needless to say, not much room to stretch out! We headed out at midnight and eventually made it to the starting line in time to catch a couple hours of sleep. On the asphalt. In the parking lot. Yeah, we're hardcore. We weren't even sure that it was the start, since there was absolutely nothing set up when we drove up! But we were too tired to care, haha. Luckily we were woken up at 5:30 a.m. by the crowd of people who arrived. And there was frost on my sleeping bag. It was freezing! We checked in, ate, and got Brooke ready to start at 7:00.

We were super excited to start! Haha Kimri is so weird...

Wes and Brooky before the start!!

There was six of us runners (plus Wes, our driver) in our van. Basically, van 1 rocked! Brooke ran her first leg, then it went Brittany, me, Karen, Kendra, and Kimri. We all did really great on that first section!    We then met up with Van 2 at around 1 in the afternoon at Exchange 6, when they took off to run their 6 legs. This gave us several hours of well needed sleep and rest!!

 Arriving at Exchange 6!

We then drove forward to Exchange 12 in Surprise to take a nice long nap on the baseball field at a high school. Well deserved and much needed!! Van 2 arrived at around 7, at which time Brooke left again to run her second leg. Brittany had a hard time in hers, she was having knee problems but we pretty much forced her to finish hers. Haha! She did great though, what a trooper! My second leg was so difficult! Not only were my legs already tired from my first run, but this run had a portion on a rocky and sandy trail. I swear, it was like they were playing a trick on us! It was like running on the beach, horrible! And then after that I had this long uphill for about a mile before I turned out of town and went back into the desert for some rolly-polly highway running. Which was kind of scary at night, but luckily we all had plenty of reflective gear and flashlights on! Which I was very grateful for! But I finished that one pretty strong. Everyone in our van continued running their legs until Kimri finished sometime around 1 in the morning in Anthem.

Arriving at Exchange 18, exhausted!! 

We then had only a few hours to sleep while the other van ran (they only had 24 miles to go, which wouldn't take very long) but luckily Brooke had some relatives in Anthem who had a bunch of empty beds for us to sleep in! We took quick showers and laid down for a quick nap, with very specific instructions for the other van to call us when they were an hour away from Exchange 24. This they did, except we didn't account for us not waking up to their calls! One of us finally woke up and boy did we jump out of those warm beds and rush out the door!! We sped to the next exchange, where Van 2 had only been waiting for 10 minutes or so. Yay for not losing too much time! Since this was our last leg, we were super hyper and excited to go! Mind you, this was 5:30 in the morning, haha. Brooke did super good with her run, but since Brittany was injured the amazing Kendra stepped up and ran the longest and hardest leg, 8.8 miles of hills. Bless her heart! She did a great job, and she even ran most of her last leg too, while Brooke covered up the rest. I had an awesome last run as well, 7.7 miles of straight downhill with the prettiest view of Four Peaks and the deserts north of Scottsdale. I did it in great time!

 Beautiful sunrise!

Karen and Brooke looking good!!

Kendra ended up doing 26 whole miles (marathon distance!) while Brooke did 23, and I did exactly 21. Poor Kimri had the worst run out of the bunch, I do believe! Her last run was going into Fountain Hills (key word: hills) and she was super mad by the end!! Haha, you can't help but laugh though. We gave her a ton of support and cheered her on with our dirty dancing. Hehe :)

Making our entrance into exchange 30--we were famous for blasting music and yelling with the megaphone at the exchanges. Also, we were famous for our dirty dancing on the side of the road!

So happy to be done!!

Here comes Kimri!!

We were so happy when our Van finished our runs in Fountain Hills (the other team had their last legs to do still, from FH to Tempe). We headed home to Gilbert, took some nice showers, got on our team shirts (Moms&Maidens!! We Run For Chocolate!) and headed back to Tempe to await Anna so we could our make our triumphant run over the finish line together. It was AMAZING to cross that finish after 32 hours of non stop awesomeness! 

Here we come!!!

We're done!! WOOOO!!

M&M'S: MOMS&MAIDENS FOREVER!!

WE RUN FOR CHOCOLATE!

Highlights of the whole thing:

-spending time with my little bro before he leaves on his mission!

-all of the MANY HOT guys we saw out on the course. My goodness! All I had to do was say "Kimri, look behind you." And all she had to say was yes (he's hot) or no (he's meh). Haha, she always knew exactly what I was talking about. 

- KIMRI! YOU RUN LIKE A WHORE! (Weston)

-the many crumping and poppin it and just all around dirty dance parties that we had every time we pulled over to cheer on our runner. People loved it (for the most part, except for that old guy that gave us a thumbs down) 

- Kimri and Wes climbing on top of the van at various moments and dancing like crazy

-DIRTY BIT!

-I learned how to shake my booty pretty well thanks to Kimri

-This takes the cake for most hilarious moment (according to others, not me!): Driving in to Exchange 26, just before I ran my last leg, I had the window down, megaphone on full blast, and I was belting out Glee's version of "Total Eclipse of the Heart" to all the people gathered at the exchange point. There were many shocked faces, mostly laughter and cheering. I think Karen nearly peed her pants. I could have passed as a drunk for sure. The best part was I had to walk up to those people minutes later and act totally normal as I waited for Kendra. Hilarious to highest degree!

-singing, once again with megaphone on and music on full blast, "The Time" by the Black Eyed Peas at the biggest crowd at Exchange 30. "I've had the time of my life, and I've never felt this way before!" Definitely fitting :)

-all of the team names- The ChiChi Express, and some other dirty ones that I won't repeat :) they were all awesome!

- getting to know my team mates better

There were so many other great stories and moments that I can't remember right now, but just know that it was epic. I can sum up this experience in three words: 

BEST. WEEKEND. EVER.

I'm already planning for next year!! Cannot wait! 

One week til RAGNAR DEL SOL

Holy heck am I nervous! And excited! And ready to go already!

One week from now I will be doing the Ragnar Relay, 200ish miles of running through the Arizona desert, from Wickenburg to Tempe. It is gonna be epic, let me tell ya. Good thing I only have to do 20 of those miles, what would I do without my amazing team?? Let's just hope for amazing weather and no blisters. I really have no words to describe how awesome it is going to be...so I won't even try. Check back next week for pics and a super long post :)

Good morning, now panic!

That's how I felt this morning. My head popped off the pillow, and when I looked at the clock, it read 7:12 a.m. I had a half marathon at 7:50. Needless to say I jumped out of bed, got dressed, brushed my teeth, grabbed all my race essentials, and ran out that door in five minutes. Then, after felony speeds of over 60 mph on surface streets (don't judge) I made it to the starting line with two minutes to spare. However, I realized as I was putting on my race number that I was definitely not in the right mindset to run 13.1 miles. Remember, running is 10% physical and 90% mental. I was stressed out and already winded from sprinting from the parking lot across the street. So, as the half marathon started, I changed my race to the 10K. There was no way I was running that half!! Ha ha! Luckily, the 10K didn't start for another 20 minutes, which was the perfect amount of time to collect myself, calm down a bit, and stretch nice and deep. It felt great, since my legs were still sore from my Wednesday workout. 

This race turned out to be one of the best I've ever done! Which made me super happy :) The course was pretty difficult, the first three miles are all uphill, but surprisingly enough I was able to keep a really good pace the entire way up. Then I really let loose coming back downhill, which I regretted later because there were some surprise hills near the end that I wasn't prepared for. But I kept up pace, and crossed the finish line in about 1:02 (I don't know my official results yet). I was exhausted! Hills really take it out of you! But, the whole point of doing this race was to train for the Ragnar relay coming up in two weeks, where I know I will run into the occasional hill. It was great practice! Also, be prepared for a long post after that race, it's a 24 hour, 200 mile relay :) should be a blast!! 

Recently, a friend and I have tried to cut extra and unneeded sugar out of our diets, like candy, cookies, brownies, cake, ect. The first day was so hard! But after that it got pretty easy, I wasn't tempted that much. It's been three weeks and I have eaten hardly any sugar or sweets. It's legit! Now our goal these next couple weeks is a contest to see who can lose five pounds the fastest. I think I can win! Haha...maybe. It's gonna be fun! 

Anyway, these next couple weeks might be stressful, given that I am planning the Ragnar for our team, so I have to make sure 11 other people are taken care of and ready to go! This has been almost three months in the making, so I am so stoked!! Wish us luck!