12 People, 196 Miles, 27 Hrs, 40 Min, 1 Million Hills, 1 Sweet Race

The first annual Texas Ragnar Relay finally came to pass this weekend. After returning from a conference in dallas at 12:30 in the morning I woke up five hours later to meet up with our team (Goodman: A/C and Heating) at their plant. We got into two vans and drove three and a half hours out to San Antonio. We got there early so they let our team start at 10:00 instead of 11:00 so we could get underway for this huge race. Most of the teams started at either 9:00 or 11:00. There were 41 teams who started the race including some professional athletes with four and six man teams whose team members all ran marathon plus distances, and most of them at a 5-6 minutes pace. We saw one of them and I could not believe the speed they were able to maintain!

Now a lot of people were doing the race to get through it, others wanted attention, and of course you had those in it to win. There were awards for the best costumes or outfits (we saw one team called "A Few Chix Short" that ran in red dresses; they were actually one of the best), best decorated van (we saw one that said "Chix That Run" with a CTR (we asked, they were LDS) symbol/sheild on it), best team name (My favorites were "Thought This Was A 10K, and More Cowbell!).

This was the beginning of my first 7-mile leg

The first van of six had 37 miles to run before our van began its part so we went and got some lunch at a truly little hometown diner called 814 Bistro. They had some of the best homemade pecan pie I'd ever eaten. Five hours later I ran my first leg in 56:23 and was feeling good. After that was done it got dark and we had to run with vests and lights on. The cool night air made it a lot more bearable and I got through my second 7-miler in just 50:10. It was also the first time I even saw any other runners on the course and I was able to pass four of the 9:00 starting teams.

I dropped the baton (this cool orange slap braclet) at my last transition. We were only halfway up this monster hill!

I definatley underestimated how hard hills would make things. There are none to train on in Houston. Also, my previous two legs I was pretty fresh and there was no sun or much heat at all beating down on me. 14-miles and two hours of sleep also added to factors that slowed me down on my last 3.4 mile leg which I ran in 25:44. I was able to pass one person, however. The time in between the rusn required a lot of streching so I didn't tighten up too much.

Done and Done! Sweet!

When it was all said and done I was just thrilled that I got through it. Our division was corporate male (because we didn't have an equal number of female athletes we could be considered for the coed coroporate team, which we would have placed second in). We took 3rd place in our division and 19th overall out of the 38 teams that finished the race. The other two corporate teams took 2nd and 4th overall so I we felt good! Usually this race triples in popularity the next year eventually filling up until they have to do a lottery to see who enters. However, all the inagural teams are grandfathered in, so we have a sure spot next year!

I had no idea that I would have so much fun when I signed up for this, but I can't think of anything more exciting, competitive, fulfilling, and just plain crazy. Maybe that's why we all did it. I'm looking forward to next year. After all this I'm confident I could do a half marathon.