Napa Valley Ragnar

I made the mistake of letting Marston play with our camera and it is now broken. So I have no pictures from my Ragnar race. Okay, I have a few from the other girls but I have none of my own. These I copied from facebook. Hopefully I'll get more later.

Ragnar was awesome. It's a relay race that went from the Golden Gate Bridge to Napa Valley (a little under 200 miles). There are teams of 12 and each teammate does 3 legs. We run for 30 plus hours straight. I was runner number 10 and I had a total of 20.8 miles. My first leg was 7.8 miles through the hills north of San Francisco on Point Reyes/Petaluma Rd. It was beautiful. I got to run past the Cheese Factory where Dan and I went when we were first "friends". After my leg I felt pretty good. Tired from the hills but okay. A couple hours later, I started to feel really sick. I began to throw up and didn't stop for hours. I couldn't keep anything down. I think I throw up 8 times. At one of the exchanges we ran into my home teacher and he gave me a blessing. After that I went back to the hotel and slept. They just drove through my second leg. I was really bummed. I was looking forward to my night run but I think if I had not slept I would not have been able to finish. After some rest I got back in the car and continued on with my team. I felt much better, not 100% but okay enough to finish. I ran my third leg of 6.8 miles and had my team van stop often to cheer me on. It was incredible. I ran on this road that went stright through the most beautiful vineyards I've ever seen.  I finished it, hot, sweaty and tired. I'm still sad I didn't get to do my 2nd leg. I was so sick. I still can't figure out why. I did everything right. My body was ready. I drank lots of water the day before and that morning. I had a good breakfast and energy bars. I carried water on my run and ate a package of Stingers. I don't know what happened. Part of me thinks that I needed to go through something like that so that I would have faith and trust in a Priesthood blessing. I know that's what allowed me to feel well enough to do my third leg. I felt lifted up when I should have been totally energy zapped. The power of prayer. Heavenly Father knows each of us and is ready to support when asked. There were many prayers on my behalf and for that I am thankful.  It was a very rewarding weekend. Good times with girlfriends, pushing our bodies to do something incredible. Well worth the sweat and tears.