Ragnar Great River Relay 2014 -- Part 3

I smell pancakes.... I was only able to sleep for about an hour. Either the sun coming through the gymnasium windows or the smell of pancakes woke me up. Or maybe I woke up because I finally had to poop! The day's run was dependent on my being able to poop... I just couldn't do another 5 miles without my tummy feeling better.

Ron and Lisel were awake too so we all went in search of breakfast. A big plate of pancakes, orange juice, hot cocoa and coffee cost $5 and was a fundraiser for Boulder Options. So we gladly forked over the dough and piled on the syrup and butter! It didn't take long before the rest of the team joined us. We had a good couple hours before van 1 would be headed our way, though they were running well ahead of schedule by almost an hour, so I didn't have much time to get those pancakes to settle in. In the meantime the team shared stories about their families, their night runs and talked about who had or had not pooped yet. I warned you that this was a pretty common theme during Ragnar. Pooping and Sausages. More on the sausages later.

We were on a roll this morning, Van 1 was coming in early and I was off for a hard five miles. I was tired, my legs were burning and my gut was not all that happy with me after 5 lbs of pancakes but I had a good first part of my run.  What took me by surprise though was that I'd be running up a large hill on 70th street in Cottage Grove. Huh?! That's kind of a big hill I guess, but my team was cheering me on along the way and had plenty of water for me as I practically crawled by!

What really kept me going at this point was that I knew my mom and my beautiful kiddos would be waiting for me at this finish line. So even though the hill had wrecked me and the temperature was climbing, one foot kept going in front of the other and before long I saw my family waiting for me. They were yelling "Go Mom!" and before long vans full of teams along the side of the road were picking up the chant "Go Mom!" and ringing their cowbells. And me... my hand went to my chest and I completely choked up! All the training that was involved, all the pain and tears from an injury that almost sideline me was all worth it for this very moment. The moment I could see that my family was proud of me. I was showing my kids how rewarding and important it is to take care of that body of theirs and everything came together. It was like that last block I was leaping for joy!

Through all of that leaping I had managed to almost pee my pants so after a super quick walk to the satellites stationed at the other side of the exchange, my wobbly legs brought me back to our van where I gladly checked off my last leg of my Ragnar journey from our van tally.

It was only 3 miles later that my teammate Wendy got to feel some of that same joy as her husband and three beautiful children were waiting for her at the next exchange. Which was great, since part of Wendy's leg didn't have good signage and a group of runners needed to turn around, thankfully it wasn't too far, but any distance added at this point was defeating. With the good vibes still going, team May the Course Be With You kept it going.  Lisel had a hard climb at the end of her 4.5 miles and she passed the slap bracelet on to Cheryl who brought us through District Del Sol and up into downtown St. Paul.

I'm not going to lie: I briefly thought about ditching my team for a margarita outside at Boca Chica, but I motored on. It was fun to watch Cheryl climb the hill up the Wabasha street bridge where we stopped to cheer her on and take a few pictures of the surrounding area.  It's sometimes hard to figure out the route that the van should be taking when runners are on trails or on one way roads that vans can't enter. So, after getting a bit turned around in downtown we were headed out to continue to support Cheryl on her run along the running path on Shepard Road.

Then Rachana headed out for her long journey along the river but at this point both vans had met up and were each their to support her with cheers, water, Star Wars characters and shenanigans to keep her laughing and running.  I think at this point of the race we were all getting a little punchy so the silliness really came out. (We borrowed some props from Jackson's Star Wars stash)

When Rachana passed the running responsibility over to Angie for the win (okay not win, but it sounded good) we were all elated. The end was near -- we did it! Angie as always, ran the last 4.8 miles strong, even though the heat of the day was settling in around the high 80s! The rest of us raced along to the end of the course where Ron dropped us off so we could run the last block all together as our 12 person team through the orange Ragnar arches of the finish line. It was truly an amazing experience and even though I didn't hardly see the other 6 members of our team in van 1, they feel like good friends as we all went through this great challenge together!

Oh... and I bet you think I forgot.... well, I'm not going to name any names, but it was noted that someone in our van smells like sausage when they sweat. Sausages!!  HAHAHA!

That reminds me, I also need to give a shout out to the best van driver around!  With our gracious driver, we were all able to concentrate on our running, sleeping, cheering, eating and hydrating without having to think about driving to the next exchange. He rocked!