South Jordan Slackers finished with the very respectable time of 28:17:42.6!
It just dawned on me last night why you train. Yes, you train so your body can do it. But, more than that, you train so that during the race you don't have to think about what your body is doing and you can focus on the mental part. This was seriously hard. It wasn't so much the distances you had to run, it was that you had to do it 1- crammed into a car (just when your muscles have cemented into position, you have to run again), 2- no sleep, none (yes, there are periods of rest, but you try to sleep in the car or in some crazy campground with hundreds of people) and then 3- you have to do it three times.
I am so proud of Chad who ran two of his legs with excruciating IT Band knee pain. Seriously, he's amazing. 30 yards into his 2nd run he was crumpled over and we had Terry (the Superman of runners), ready to jump in. Then Chad stood up and kept going. For 7.8 miles. No kidding. He ran with a great little, stiff-legged hobble, but he did it. AND...he barely lost any time off his predicted time!!! My husband is cool.
I can't decide if this was as hard as I thought it would be or harder than I expected. Either way, it was dang hard. Like, I started my third leg with tears in my eyes hard. Yep, brought me to tears. This is when I realized what a mental thing it is. I can't tell you how much I DID NOT want to run at that point. I was SO done. But, I did it. I even sprinted to my finish.
I guess you could call it miserable fun, which is exactly what I had hoped for. We had such a great time with our team. I was so impressed with our team...what animals. Feeling as good as I did with what I accomplished, made me that much more impressed with what they did. Wow. The distances, the up hills and the down hills...really, really hard stuff. We bonded over laughter and a whole lot of sweat. Our motto..."what happens at Ragnar stays at Ragnar." Chad's already talking about next year. Me? Ask me in 6 months.
(pictures to come)
6 comments:
Amazing. Crazy. What an accomplishment. It's probably one of those things that you are glad you can say you did, not that I would know... just guessing! Good job for sticking in there and finishing. And Chad... you are the man!
Oh Julie, I'm so glad you guys did well and "enjoyed" (if you can call it that) the race. What a great accomplishment and something I sure you'll never forget. I hope Chad's knees get feeling better. The other thing I forgot to tell you to try is KT Tape. We used in during our 1/2 and for me, it was a miracle. It totally relieved the pain. If you haven't already, you may want to try it. We can't wait to see the pics.
Wow that is incredible!! Congrats!
Great job, Julie! You are so right about the mental part. It is really weird, but such a big part of running is convincing yourself to do it!
You should be so proud! Good work!
You and Chad have my total and complete respect! You guys rock. I think of doing a 1/2 at times, but usually talk myself out of it! I've done a 5K and a 10K, but I think a 1/2 might push me over the edge! For me, running is ALL mental through the whole thing. My body can do it, but my mind doesn't want to! You guys are seriously awesome.
Hey everyone, this is Chad.
Julie is not giving you the entire story. Julie did AWESOME!! I have spent 16 years getting to know Julie and I have never been more proud of her and this accomplishment. Less than one year ago she was running 8 consecutive minutes without stopping. Now, she ran over 12 miles and looked like a pro. One of the few reasons I love her is her determination and follow through.
She is amazing!
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