TZR 2013

Two weeks ago, some of us were right in the middle of our Top Of Zion Relay.  I think it has taken so long to post about it because it kicked our butts and maybe even our spirits a little.  A relay brings with it so many emotions and they change quickly and its just kinda a crazy thing.  Especially with a team of 13 (hey.... that's awesome though.. 13) girls.  It was fun though and hard as all hard.
People have called this relay the iron man of relays... besides the dramatic elevation changes, the heat is a huge factor in this.  We learned from others last year to bring sprayers and those got us through our middle of the day legs. 

The great thing about this relay is that ya just get to kinda forgot all the normal everyday responsibilities and just enjoy hanging out with your friends, acting silly, dancing to motivate and entertain each other, singing, putting a giant jalapeno on top of your car, giving random strangers  high fives or spraying them down or letting them give you a sponge bath in the middle of the road and, oh ya, running.  I mean normally we can't just wear a sombrero and stand on the side of the road, blast some Mexican tunes and do crazy dance moves.  It's good...  it's challenging.  It also boosts the spirit.  Proving to ourselves that we can do hard things.  It stretches us to our limits. 

Sometimes miracles happen too...  example;  Maryann was running on north Fork road and we really NEEDED to dance for her, but there wasn't an ipod plugged in to our music.  Kamie Lee found the first radio station she could...  "If you're going through Hell, Keep on going"  was on....  I'm not even kidding..  Miraculous right? 

It's all those things and the inside jokes and the team coming together when it's needed the most.  Yeah, ya don't get a lot of sleep and sometimes there is stress, but in the end, it's pretty awesome....  SAIL.

 

RUN, RIDE, EAT, DANCE, REPEAT

The slogan for RAGNAR is really Run, ride, Sleep, repeat. But I don’t really think sleep should be in there because so little of it happens. A lot more eating happens. Ya, so I switched it up. (Can I echo your A LOT more eating happens. I think I doubled my weight at this race alone!)

When MaryAnn ask me a long time ago if I wanted to be on her RAGNAR team I was so excited. Ragnar is like the mother of all relays. Ragnar metals are AWESOME and this was the one that started it all celebrating its 10th year.

Wasatch back was the first RAGNAR they did, (the creators are from Utah) They only had 22 teams the first year and this year there were 1500 teams.. Crazy huh?  More crazy is that there are that many crazy people. I really don’t get it even though I am one of those crazy people. Like it is miserable, and you are sleep deprived, and you are running in the dead heat, or the middle of the night, and you get blisters and sore muscles and ride in a van with a bunch of stinky people, and your stinky.. and you sleep in a gym with hundreds of other people or on a lawn, or where ever you can. You pay a lot of money to do it. but it’s awesome!! It’s one of those things you just can’t explain. Maybe teamwork, silliness, camaraderie, amazing accomplishment, Fun, dancing, singing, food, Laughing, Friendships…. are a few words I would use to help someone understand, but you just really can’t understand until you do it. And in the middle of it your like…. “What the Heck, this isn’t fun!” This is about 2am when I’m waking up from sleeping on the gym floor to go run in the cold dark night all alone. But at the end it’s awesome and you want to do it every year! It’s really an unexplainable thing… Like Ragnar makes you bi-polar!

Three Of us fishies were on our RAGNAR team.  It was a good time.  We had a fun team name;  MUGGLE POWER.  This name gave us Celebrity Status with all the Harry Potter Fans around.  We were ask many times to get our picture with people..  ha ha. 

Us same 3 are headed into another relay this weekend.  Completely crazy or hard core?  Not sure...  We just love to run..  or maybe we just love to hang-out with our friends and eat and dance around in the middle of the road.  ya, I think that's it!! (Becka you hit the nail on the head, we are crazy, but we love it!)


I loved Ragnar and the girls I ran with. We had so much fun. I love that we are all starting to get each other's personalities and just have fun. It cracked me up because Becka and I kept laughing about how we would tell people we were about to run from Logan to Park City and everyone was shocked. Haha. Neither of us had been to Logan and we didn't leave until around 3:00 PM the day before the race. Everyone kept saying "You do know Logan is on the other side of the state...right?" Yeah... we like to drive far away places to run. We kept laughing about how we spend time away from our families and a lot of money to go run and not sleep! We could be spending this money and hitting the malls or spas. Nope! Haha. Instead we like pure torture! It's the beauty of running I guess.

I was seriously amazed by how pretty Logan and the surrounding towns were. It was honestly so beautiful and such different scenery than I'm used to seeing in Utah. I loved each one of my runs and even had an I hate you moment in my first run. (You've always got to have an I hate you moment in running to make you realize how much you love it).

The most bizarre thing about the entire relay was falling asleep in a high school gym with about 6 people and waking up to the gym completely covered with sleeping bodies! Almost an eerie feeling! I was thinking about how trusting we are as runners. Would I just randomly sleep in a gym with that many people in any other conditions? Nope! But the running community is just something else.

So glad I was able to do this race. It was fun to meet new people and see new sites!

Throw it back to the one that started it all

The Inaugural Top Of Zion Relay 2012

Ok, so all the girls were already runners before they got into this race, but this race started it for me and it is the race that kinda brought us all together and it is the one that gave us our great blog name:  RUN LIKE A FISH. 
Ebbi is always going to claim the fame of getting you into running, Becka. But let's just remember who told her to ask you to run this relay!! Ebbi I'm trying to think where we even saw the Top of Zion Relay flyer? Was it at Adobe?

First how it got us all together.  Lexi and Ebbi were our team captains.  We needed another team member.  We had thought about MaryAnn, but she was doing the Ragnar Wasatch back two weeks before.  Finally we decided just to ask her, what would it hurt.  Who knew she was a crazy addicted runner who would just consider Ragnar a warm-up for TZR.  Yay!!! (Crazy thing was, I was dying wanting you guys to ask me to run it with you!  I just thought it was a little too forward to invite myself on the team! So, so GLAD y'all asked me!  I now have some pretty amazing close friends because of it!) 
So glad you decided to run with us MaryAnn! 

"Run like a fish" came about after a TZR meeting, we were all leaving and Ebbi shouted as we went out the door, "Run like a fish".  Her pregnant mind was a little....  well, you know how preggo minds are.  We laughed our heads off and even wrote it on the side of our vans for the race.  We probably wouldn't have laughed so hard had we known we would literally be running like fish in upwards of 114 heat.  We were dumping water on our runners so yep...  we were running through water..  like fish.  =)

The actually running in TZR killed me, I didn't train enough. but I loved the cheering each other on, Dancing and stuff!  I'm all over that!  So as we traveled along down that last dirt road, all of us dying, we went around the group and all vowed NEVER to do TZR again.  I think it took us all of 24 hours, if not less to start planning for the next year, which is coming up in a month.  Go Jalapeno Hotties!!!

I was one of those girls that SAID no way in H will I run this relay again.  I know that I can even be quoted as saying "this relay should be posted as for elite runners only!" I am sure that was after running in 114 heat and seeing some of my teammates having to keep running even though there was dust and heat blasting us!  I also think I was the first one to post on our Facebook group asking who was going to run it with me again next year!  Yes I am addicted!  Pretty sure you were!  jaja 

I am sad we were all in different vans. I wish we could be in the same van this year! I still had a blast with my van 1 girls. It is definitely a tough relay and I remember thinking this is insane. We will NEVER do this again. But wow... changed our running lives! ja ja. I compare the toughness of every race to this relay! I'm so glad to have done this with all of you.  I can't wait to take our annual Jalapeno Hotties picture in the year 2042! We will set records!  ja ja. 

Here it is one month from TOZ! I must admit I am scared beyond belief! I was so glad I was 23 weeks pregnant last year and decided not to run. After seeing what these girls went through I was sure I would have gone into labor! The only thing that comes to mind when I think of TOZ is "What doesn't KILL you makes you STRONGER!" I have so much respect for those who ran it last year! It was such an emotional experience (and I was only the driver hahaha). As we were driving to Tory the day before we drove over van 2 first legs and I was sure Becka was going to kill me! I felt horrible (Let's just say the course description did not  give us any insight on how difficult this really was), but to my surprise Becka and her van were all fired up and excited! They showed TOZ who was boss!! I really wish we were all in the same van this year! It really sucks that we aren't! I'm pretty sure after this year of  TOZ is over we will vow to never do it again, only to find us making plans for the next year a few days later! We are crazy like that!