Ragnar 2011

Finally!  I finally got to run the Wasatch Back.  It's been the one race that has always eluded me. I've known many who have run it but was never able to snag a spot on any team until this year.  While training for my marathon with the Huntsman Hometown Heroes, a few of the girls who I would run with regularly told me they had a team and they also told me that they weren't sure if all the people that originally signed up would really pan out.  I immediately volunteered myself as a replacement if they ended up needing one.  Well about a month before the race they called.  I jumped at the opportunity and marked my calendar for June 17-18th. 


The entire team was made up of first timers, no one had run this race before.  I think I was the only one with any previous knowledge of how things would go thanks to all those people that I knew that had run it before. In a nutshell, Ragnar Wasatch Back is a relay race from Logan to Park City - 191 miles.  There are 12 people on a team split into 2 vans 6 runners each.  Each runner runs 3 legs of the race of differing lengths and difficulty.  On average it takes most teams about 30 hours to complete. I never once thought this race was going to be easy. . .while I think there were a few on our team who had heard that Ragnar is just a big party with some running involved.  That mindset got us into a little trouble but we persevered.

I was in Van #2, runner 7.   Our team was an all girl team and the ladies in our van were so awesome.  I only knew 2 of the six before race day but quickly discovered that of the 2 vans I was super grateful to be in van #2.  We started our legs in Liberty...it was all fun and excitement.  We couldn't wait to get started but wait we did.  Our van #1 came in an hour and half behind projection :(  but that didn't dampen our spirits just yet.

Here's Alicia showing off her stuff and our van.

Our team name was "Will Run For Cupcakes!"

Our legs were awesome...we all ran within minutes of our projected times and that was with scorching temps, some pretty extreme hills and sleep deprivation. 

Here is Katy at the her 1st exchange passing the slap bracelet to Alicia.

Alicia conquering Trapper's Loop

And Traci coming in after running Snowbasin Road.

She was amazing...all of her legs were really hard and she rocked them all!

We started our second legs around 3:30AM 

(another hour and half behind...yeah the total deficit now 3 hours)

Here I am running in my reflective gear.  I'm on the left, the person on the right was Julie,

my teammate, waiting with water.

After my run...I had decked myself out in glow sticks but my headlamp was so bright they didn't show up very well on the road. Soooo... flash on.

Flash off... nice!

Here's our van just before starting our last legs.

After hours of waiting...seriously, thanks to van #1 our van started our last legs, that would bring us into the finish, 4 hours behind projection.  When we came to the realization that we might not even make it into the finish by 11:00PM which was Ragnar's cut-off time, we got a little bitter. It was the middle of the night and we were all sleep deprived and we weren't being very nice. I'm not proud of it but that's how it was.  By the time we actually started running we had accepted our fate and didn't let the lateness of the hour dampen our spirits anymore.

Running my last leg.

Coming into the exchange for my last hand-off.

Here we are on "Ragnar Hill" the infamous mountain just above Park City.

Sheila (left) had just run a massive uphill leg and then we hit snow. 

How can you be so hot and then so cold in one day? 

We dropped off our last runner at about 9PM then headed to the finish line to wait for her.

By this time we knew for sure that we were running for last place.  We watched many a team give up and just pick up their runners and head to the finish.  I have no idea how they can feel good about that. I don't know how after running for 2 days, so many hours, so much effort, you could not finish what you started? That's just crazy!

  We embraced our last placeness and never gave up and pushed all the way to the end.

 There are a few perks to coming in last. 

Perk #1- All the race crews and volunteers are super nice to you.

They would cheer and scream your name and go crazy with support as we ran through exchanges. Which makes you feel special.

Perk #2 - You get the race course to yourself.

Perk #3 - You don't have to follow all the rules that all the other vans had to. 

For example, all other van #2s that came in a timely fashion had to leave their runners and couldn't follow them down the mountain and then they had to park their vans at Deer Valley Resort and shuttle into the finish.  Teams in last place don't have to do that.  They let us follow our runner all the way down and then we got to drive straight to the finish to meet our last runner and come in together.

Here's the finish line at Park City High School

Here we come, last place at about 10:20PM

Perk #4 - Last place teams get a high five arch to run through.

Sweet! 

 

Although it was dark when we came in and all the vendors were gone and the party at the finish was over, we still finished.  We got our medals, we got our car stickers and I got a ragnar symbol spray painted on the back of my left leg that obviously didn't come off by the next morning which I got to not-so-proudly wear to church. :)

Trip of a Lifetime

We planned a trip this year that was a once in a lifetime vacation.  The kids looked forward to it for months and even got to miss the last 3 days of school to go.  And what exotic location did we find ourselves the first week of June you ask?  Well it was the Four Corners!  That's right a once in a lifetime trip...because after you've seen it there is no need to go back. :)  Don't get me wrong we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves it's just one of those been there, done that places.

And why the Four Corners you ask?  Well Ethan learned about it in school this year.  4th grade social studies curriculum is Utah History and when he learned about the four corners it blew his mind!  He talked about it to everyone.  "Did you know that at the four corners, 4 states meet?"  "Did you know that there is a place where you can be in 4 places at once?"  "Man, I want to go there so bad!"  "If I go there I'm going to do a handstand in all 4 states at once."  Now tell me how a mother can listen to that and not do anything about it?  Plus, I had never been to the Four Corners either.  I've lived in this state my whole life and had never seen this unique wonder.  I told JayDee that we had to make it happen. It was the mother and teacher in me. Expanding classroom learning with real life experiences is a way to get children to become lifelong learners.  Now I'm pretty sure I won't be able to take my kids to Washington D.C. next year when Ethan learns about US History but the Four Corners we could do, so we did.

Day 1
It's a loooonnnggg drive to Four Corners. Much longer than I anticipated, I thought it takes about 5 hours to get to St. George so it must take about that long to get to the other side of the state.  Nope, try about 8 hours.  We did stop for all 3 meals so that contributed to some of the extra time.  On our way we stopped at an overlook to stretch our legs.  It was called Castle Valley.  The wind was whipping around like crazy but the kids loved it and ran around and climbed rocks and saw lizards and told me that this was the best day ever!  Wow pretty great praise for a rest stop.  We hadn't even seen what we came to see and already it was the best day ever.  :)

We finally got to the Four Corners at about six o'clock and the wind was still going strong. I guess that is normal weather for down south.

 Here we are!

4 kids...4 states

 

Ethan's dream come true!

After our turn being in 4 places at once we did a little Navajo shopping.  Do you notice all the little booths built in around the four corners?  Well that's where the Navajo natives sit and sell their wares.  It's all reservation land around the four corners, each state represented there is a different native tribe's land but the actual monument is run by the Navajo Nation.  Ethan, Emma and Hannah bought jewelry and of course Isaac had to have a weapon of some kind.  That kid is all boy...he chose a tomahawk.  He wanted one with a real blade but settled for one with a rock in place of the blade. Phew!

We thought since we were in Southern Utah and had never really explored this area of our state that we'd see some other famous sites. Before we left we had already dubbed this trip our hiking vacation because that's pretty much all we did.

Day 2 

We drove into Colorado on our second day to visit a famous national park there called Mesa Verde.  It's all ancient indian ruins that date back to 600 A.D. It was pretty cool. 

I'm not sure if our kids were supposed to be walking ON these ruins but they've lasted for these thousand of years and there were no ropes as a barricade so....

 Keeping it silly while waiting for our Cliff Palace tour.

Cliff Palace from above.

Amazing isn't it?  This whole settlement built right into the side of a mountain. 

A little closer

Inside.  This guy was our tour guide.  

He was good but he had a lisp just like Syd the Sloth in Ice Age 

so it was a little distracting.

On our way out we had to scale some pretty steep passes and climb ladders straight up. 

The  kids said they felt like Indiana Jones.

These next pictures are from the Spruce Tree House.

If you've noticed all the holes in these previous pictures, they are called kivas.

Archeologists believe these were like underground living rooms.  

In the Cliff Palace there are 21 kivas.  They found them in all the sites

throughout Mesa Verde.  The roofs were made of timber and earth so they didn't last through the years like the stone walls did. But here at this site they recreated a roof and let people go down inside to get a feel for what they were like.

This is inside. Isaac is facing the fresh air vent and standing in front of the short wall built to keep the fresh air from blowing out the fire that is directly behind him.

 

 Bad lighting above...this is what we were standing in front of.

After all that red, dusty rock we needed to cool off.  Pool time!

Day 3 - 4

On day 3 we headed back North.  We stopped in Moab (another place we'd never been before - I know shocking!) and spent two days at Arches National Park.

Our first order of business at Arches would of course have to be seeing Delicate Arch.

It's just over a mile and a half hike in to get to it and everything was going swimmingly...

the kids were being nice to each other, we spotted some wildlife,

 Isaac informed us he was the best hiker ever and then a little trip and fall sent him into crying mode and this is how he spent the rest of the hike.

Poor JayDee.

There was no wind on this day so it was just plain HOT.

 Since this place is called Arches, we decided that we'd keep our eyes pealed for as many arches as we could find.  Ethan found this one close to end of our Delicate Arch hike and scaled the slick rock to get up there and discovered to his delight that our goal was just around the corner.

 It really is a sight to behold!  And it's perched so precariously on a ledge that it's a little frightening with small people around.  We did make our way over to it and here we are at the base trying not to fall off either side.

On our second day at Arches we did a few less dramatic hikes but I think our kids liked them best because they were more like leisurely strolls than real hikes.  And just as luck would have it, Isaac tripped again 10 minutes into our hike to Landscape Arch and poor JayDee had to hoist him up on the shoulders again.  What fun!

Landscape Arch

 Double Arch

I think my kids liked this one the best because once you get up there you can climb up and around and all over the rocks.  Definitely the most interactive arch we saw.

 

 We headed home after this and made sure that on our way back we stopped at the Monticello Temple.  I like to give my kids every opportunity to see and feel temples up close.  This one was fun because it is so small.  I think it was the first of the small temples built and it really is no bigger than a regular church building.  This temple is actually right next to a church building (so I got a good comparison for size) and they share a parking lot.

What a great end to our once in a lifetime trip! 

Oh and one more thing...it just wouldn't be a Gunnell outing without a few of these.

Yep, this is how we vacation.  It can be a bit frustrating to be married to a horticulturist but it's even more maddening when it's a horticulturist who is writing a book.  To suddenly swerve to the side of the road with an exclamation of "did you see that one" or back up on a highway to get back to "that flower" and then wait 15 minutes or more for the photo shoot can really put a damper on travel plans.  It's a good thing this book is gonna make us millions. :)