Ragnar

I used to hate runners.  How annoying...these people who wake up early, put on tight pants or little shorts and run around town making everyone else feel lazy.  

And what about those super annoying runners who decide to participate in races that last more than 24 hours and cover almost 200 miles.  Those runners who paint their vans and wear headlamps and drink 5 Hour Energy then take pictures of it.  A-N-N-O-Y-I-N-G. 

Except...those races are fun.

This is Kristin McPhie.  We go way back to a fateful summer in 2004 when our husbands worked together and she had a baby and one time I made her lasagna.  Kristin is like a super hero.  She is a mother of two who cooks better than anyone I know and now she's going to law school.  Don't hate her; she's cool.  I want to be like Kristin.  A couple months ago she asked if I wanted to run a Ragnar relay with these girls from Mesa:

So I signed up knowing one girl and walked away with five new friends.  You're missing out.  These girls are hilarious.  Even more hilarious was the Rag Mag...above is a picture of Catherine and Natalie laughing at the courses...900 foot climb?  

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA let's go home.

But Catherine (mother of two cute girls) did it. And only puked once, or maybe six times.  This is her running up a six mile hill.  Hardcore.

This guy did it, too but he had a tail which (in my mind) was an unfair advantage.  All that momentum.

He's wearing a reflective vest because people get killed in these races sometimes so they're strict.  And his hooves were all over us because Kristin decided to ask if his butt was real.  Forget the butt...is the HORN real?

 

Kristin loves feeding wild animals, maybe because she relates to them so well.  Except donkeys probably don't moon their friends as they run by.

A picture of the only 10 minutes of sleep I got in 36 hours.  

 We followed each runner and made sure they had plenty of cowbell and water every few miles.

Natalie, Kristin, Kassidi and me around 4 am.

Me on my last 1/2 mile of the race.  Never felt so relieved except maybe after my kids were born. 

Our van was full of miniatures...I was like the towering Amazon woman next to these munchkins.  I look like I'm 10 feet tall in these pictures.

Meet Kassidi...the girl is 13 weeks pregnant and runs under a nine minute mile.  And below is Natalie...the sub 5-foot mom of three who is the tiniest person I know and breezed through a seven mile run at 4 am.

Here is Sara -- a mother of three who runs hills in her sleep.  Literally.  She had some TOUGH legs of the race.

   

A picture of both vans minus me and Beth...I had to hurry home to pick up my boys.  But here we are.  We joked about how slow we were the entire race but ended up taking 4th place.  This had a lot to do with everyone else but me although I enjoyed watching other people run fast.

And finally, this picture is my favorite. It was 7 am on day two.  We had spent the last SEVEN hours running through the night and were ready for some sleep.
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I also love this picture because it reminds me of why I run.  These girls have been through pregnancies, schooling, miscarriages, marital stresses, financial strains, insecurities and great loss.  Runners may seem annoying but for me it brings light.  It's a daily goal, it's a weekend with friends, it's a race to work towards and look forward to.  It's choosing positive over negative.

What's annoying about that?