Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Ragnar SoCal

In April some friends and I ran Ragnar SoCal.  We left the morning of my birthday so my cute friends showed up early in the morning to pick me up with cupcakes and happy birthday crowns that we wore all the way to California,

Nikki, Erin and Jarrie having healthy breakfast burritos at the airport after we had yummy cupcakes:)

On the plane.

The flight attendant had the whole plane sing me 'happy birthday' and made me this crown of pretzels.  I felt so loved:)







at the start line.  I was in van1 this year - so we got to get up super early - I can't remember our start time - I think it was 7 something.  We started right on the beach in Huntington Beach.  I was runner 2 so I got to wake up a little bit before I ran.



Funny van - it wasn't ours:)
The Biggest Loser had 2 teams in the race( we kicked both teams butts!) - so we got to take a picture with Sione and Jesse:)

 I have to say Van 1 has the best times for breaks and the best weather for runs - early morning and later evening.  Van 2 runs in the heat of the day and the middle of the night.  But having run van 2 last year and Van1 this year I have to say  I prefer van 2- for some reason it feels like there is less down time.  Here we had bad Mexican for lunch then lounged around on the grass trying to sleep a little before run #2.


The Rose Gardens in Carlsbad
 mileGetting ready to start my night run- after someone was killed on a night run in a Ragnar relay year you have to be lit up like the 4th of July from dusk to dawn - in a head lamp, reflective vest, blinking butt light.  My mileage was this: run #1- 5 miles, run #2- 9 miles, run #3- 7.5 miles.  So run #2 started at dusk, I felt awesome through the whole thing- except for miles 3-6 which were on a "horse trail"- it wasn't a trail so much as a rock garden - it was a miracle there weren't a ton of sprained ankles.  I felt that  I trained pretty hard for this race and was pretty happy with my runs.


The finish line on Coronado Island.  it was so pretty- I loved being right by the beach most of the time.  We got to hang out here for a long time.  Then we headed to In-n-Out for some well deserved burgers:)
The next day we spent the day being tourists on Coronado Island - good times!

This is us "packing lightly" b/c we had to have all our luggage in the vans w/ us during the race


All of the Mind Over Mileage moms at the finish line - I think we look pretty good for being up for the last 32 hours:)  We'll be doing this again next July in Seattle!!!
While it's a blast to get away with friends it's always good to come home:)

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