Ragnar Relay!!!

Alright, well I'm sure you have all heard by now what I was up to this weekend, but I still can't get over the fact that I got to do it! It had to be the absolute coolest thing ever, and unfortunately it makes life back home incredibly dull and boring comparatively. I gotta thank my cousin Michelle for inviting me (the one in the picture), and her ward for letting me join them to fill up an empty spot.

I don't know if it was the bonds formed while being stuffed in a car with 5 other sweaty people for 31 hours without sleep, or the sheer magnitude of the event, but I still can't stop smiling when I think about it.

For those of you who I haven't told, I ran in a relay over the weekend. 181 miles along the Wasatch Back on a team of 12. The team is divided into 2 vehicles, and you "leapfrog" with the other vehicle as each runner takes their turn on a leg of the race. You each run 3 times throughout the adventure while driving to checkpoints and passing water and support to your runners along the way.

566 teams total, we came in #456 with a time of 30 hours and 50 minutes. It's the kind of event where you really can't do badly. With so much support and such a great team we all did awesome! Just finishing this thing turns any average jogger into a running enthusiast (for a while anyway!).

I feel so frustrated trying to explain this thing to people here at home because you really can't feel the rush of it all unless you do it. I had no idea it would be so incredibly fun. I'm posting an introductory video that we found before running that had us all wishing we could back out. Now I think it's an excellent preview to this event! I've also compiled all the wonderful images and video clips taken of me and our team by my excellent team mates (as I forced them to take my camera and use it every time it was my turn!) into a 15 minute highlight movie. Please take a look at it as well! I would love to get a team from home together to do it next summer, but spots are already filling up fast!

Anyway, this should do it for my first real post. I'm sure you'll be reading a lot about this as I want to add things to it. There's no way I can describe the feeling completely in one try!