Misery. Regret. Misfortune.

As Ja Rule once said:  "Gather 'round.  I got a story to tell."


Wednesday morning (June 16th) I get word from my friend/roommate/coworker, Dale, that I will be running the Wasatch Back on Friday (June 18th).  Great, right?  This is something every runner would absolutely love to do, right?  Right.  Every runner would love to do this.  The problem for me is that I am not a runner.  Since the Vegas Ragnar in October I have been the opposite of a runner.  I hate running. 

So yeah, no training whatsoever, Dale and I both agree to this torturous event that makes me honestly wonder about the sanity of our species.  The scary part is that these lunatics that choose (we were forced) to participate in this thing can reproduce.


LEG 1:  5.6 MILES from Hyrum to Paradise
               I ran it in 43 minutes, which averages to 7.6 minutes per mile, passed ten people, and got passed by five.  Because my knee felt ok for this run, I was able to run hard and cause myself to dry heave six times with an actual barf between the third and fourth heaves.  The coolest was that my final three dry heaves came when I was coming up on the finish with over a hundred people standing there watching.  I bet I looked awesome.

Mid-dry-heave at the finish of the 1st leg

Me, Marianne, and Angela as I was searching for some shade to recover.

LEG 2:  4.9 MILES through the rural community of Enterprise in the Morgan Valley
                I discovered on the first leg that when I was thinking too much about how much I hated running, I could look around and admire the beauty of the landscape and my pace would pick up.  This run was SO beautiful.  Too bad I couldn't enjoy a second of it.  If you've ever had I.T. band problems, you'll understand.  My knee was being such a jerk to me that I felt like quitting on this run after about a quarter mile.  Luckily, Emy, a friend from my old ward came up to pass me and, although she was running faster than I wanted to at this painstaking point, I figured this was the only way I could finish.  I ran along the side of her.  She pulled me through til the last mile of the run, where I had to let her go ahead while I stretched my hip and knee quick.  As I passed the "One Mile Left" sign by myself, some tall guy passed me.  
"Good work", I say.  
"Go, baby, let's GO!  Finish this strong, baby!", he responds.
           My pace picked up for about 500 feet.  He helped me.  Then, as I came up on the last half mile, I noticed the lady I was about to pass was limping the same way I was.  I slowed down just a little and ran with her, figuring I should pay forward the help Emy had given me.  We bonded over the I.T. band problem we had in common and finished the leg together.  I felt like I had exhausted all of my mental strength just to finish this leg.  I honestly had no clue how I was going to run the next one.

LEG 3:  7.9 MILES along Jordanelle Reservoir, 730' elevation gain, 616' elevation loss
              I am a pansy.  Of this 7.9 mile stretch, I only actually did six miles of it, almost two of those miles, I had to power-walk.  A couple of my team members filled in and ran stretches of it for me.  I utilized my previous strategy of latching on to another runner and going at their pace for a good part of this leg.  It helped.  I was able to do the last mile of the run and cross that exchange point on my own power.  It was a small miracle that I did that much, but I still feel like a weakling idiot for letting someone else run part of my leg.


This may have been the worst decision of my life, but I got a sweet medal out of it.