Ragnar Wasatch Back

Angels Running Wild at the finish line! Love these girls!

The beginning of my last run!

Guardsman Pass...gotta love that gravel road! Oh, and I realized halfway through my run that I forgot to put my number on!! Safety pinning to my shirt while going uphill, now that was fun!

Snow in June!!

My first run!

The Wasatch Back Ragnar Relay is a 192 mile race from Logan to Park City. There are 12 runners and each person runs 3 different legs. Our team was made up of 12 women from our "Angel Park" ward. Our team name was "Angels Running Wild".

Van 1:
Runner 1-Sarah Mangone
Runner 2-Sarah Parkin (Erika Jacobs got injured)
Runner 3-Alicia Cardon
Runner 4-Rochelle Brown
Runner 5-Lisa Johnston
Runner 6-Heidi Stott

Van 2:
Runner 7-Rachel Hogge
Runner 8-Monique Draper (Tanya Wilson broke her ankle)
Runner 9-Kami Wood
Runner 10-ME!
Runner 11-Michelle Bangerter
Runner 12-Joni Hayes

Our team started at 10:00 am Friday. Van 1 ran their first legs, then we picked up about 4:30 pm on Friday and did our first legs. My first run was at 6:15 pm, Leg 10, 3.9 miles, near Pine View Reservoir. It was a pretty easy run, a little warm. Our van finished our first legs around 8 pm and then we headed up to the Bangerter's trailer where we made turkey hoagies for dinner, changed our clothes, then tried to sleep from 10:30-12:45am with no luck! I think everyone but Rachel got no more than about 10 minutes of sleep.

We started running again about 1:30 in the morning when Heidi Stott handed off to Rachel to start her night run. I started running my 2nd leg (Leg 22, 7.6 miles) at 4:50 am. It was a non-support leg so I didn't see my van the entire run. I started in the dark and got to run as the sun rose. One guy ran past me and said, "I can't get the Beatles song out of my head-'Here comes the Sun'". I began my run thinking of many of the people that I'm so thankful for in my life. I thought of Steve, Kaitlyn, Michael, Logan, my mom & dad, and I thought of all the girls doing the race and how much they have accomplished! I'm so thankful to have a healthy body and that I can run!

I ran on a trail the entire time pretty close to the Weber River. I got to cross over several small bridges crossing streams. I even got to a stream crossing through the actual trail where I had to stop and decide how far I could jump not to get my shoes wet! It really was a beautiful run!

My last run, Leg 34, 4.0 miles is the signature "Ragnar" leg. The leg description is: "Severe uphill climb through Wasatch Mountain State Park (gravel road). It's on Guardsman Pass. The elevation of this run starts at 7233' and ends at 8898'. There's a total elevation gain of 1711 feet in 4 miles! I looked at my running watch .1 miles into it and wondered if I'd really be able to finish. I ran the first .75 miles, then began walking the really steep parts, running the not as steep parts. At about the last mile there was all the sudden a ton of snow on the side of the road and in the trees. The snow banks were about 6 feet high. It really cooled the temperature down which felt SO good! I even threw a snowball at my van. I was grateful for the beautiful scenery of snow in June with the pretty Aspen trees. It helped distract me from the high-elevation hard breathing! I ended up doing 4 miles in 51:30, averaging a 13:00 mile which I felt pretty good about! I found out later that I finished the "Hill Climb" 26th out of 84 all women's teams. I also found out that my trainer Jim where I work out had the same leg and he finished in 47 minutes. I was pretty happy with finishing just 5 minutes slower than him!

That really was one of the hardest things I've ever done! My van was so awesome leap frogging me in the car while I ran, bringing me water, shot blocks, spraying me with water, giving me encouragement, honking, smiling, Joni even literally pushed on my back for about 20 feet up the hill! In fact, I thought one of the coolest things about that leg was seeing how encouraging everyone was to all the runners. Every car that went past me gave me words of encouragement. I only had a couple runners pass me, but they all did the same too. I even had one guy pat me on the back! I tried to do the same as I passed a few people on my way up that crazy mountain hill run! I know I could've never done it without the help of those around me! Kinda makes me think about how our lives are really like climbing a mountain. We can't do it without the help of friends and family, but in the end it's our own hard work and determination that gets us to the finish line. We can't compare ourselves to others in this life, there will be steep hills, some downhills, but hopefully we can stay on the course and always move forward whether it be at a slow crawl or a run. It makes life so much more enjoyable to look at the positive and help those around us!

No one, including me, cared about our finishing time, but we ended up finishing our 192 miles in 31 hrs. 48 min! That's averaging a 9:56 mile which I think is AWESOME taking into account the amount of hills in the Wasatch Back. We finished 27th out of 90 all-women teams, and 18th out of 62 "Women-open" teams.

All 12 runners had at least one steep hill to conquer, some of the hills were miles long! My favorite part of the experience was watching all the ladies on our team accomplish something so hard. Everyone worked and trained so hard and it was all a lot of us could do to hold back the tears as we watched each other hand off the baton to the next runner. All of the girls on our team conquered their legs: Sarah Parkin & Monique filled in literally the day before, Monique ran with bleeding blisters, Sarah Mangone ran over 20 miles total, Michelle just started running in January and ran all the way up Trappers Loop, Joni passed a ton of people on her climb up to Snow Basin and ran all 3 legs with no support from the van, Kami conquered the steepest hills of the entire race, Alicia ran the entire hill-filled 8 miles by Jordanelle, Heidi Stott ran a hard 8 mile climb in the middle of the night, Lisa Johnston ran 7.4 miles up Avon Pass, Rochelle ran after having a baby not even 4 months ago, Rachel ran through her knee hurting, and Sarah Parkin ran for her newborn baby Kaden that passed away just last March. It was overwhelming to see that we all accomplished something so hard! I will never forget this experience!

Now I get to put that cool sticker on my car!

Summer Points Challenge!

The Summer Points Challenge will last 10 weeks and there are 11 points you can earn each day:

240 minutes exercise a week
If you workout 6 days a week then it’s 40 min a day, or if you exercise 4 days a week for an hour then you would reach the goal. You can do it in any time combination you want to get to 240 minutes. Sunday is a blackout day.
No Soda
No diet, aspartame, carbonation.
No Sweets
No desserts, ice cream, cake, cookies, candy, chocolate, you get the idea, right? This does have some “shady” areas. I myself don’t consider sugary cereal a “sweet”, but others might. Use your good judgment. ***You will get one “FREE” day a week for Soda, Sweets, OR Fried Foods!! Your free day can be on any day, but you only get ONE day a week. So you CAN’T have a soda Monday, sweets Tuesday, and fried food Wednesday. Example: You CAN have just sweets on Sunday for that week, then the next week you could have soda just on Sunday, then the following week fried food on one day of the week. If you don’t care for soda or fried foods but you crave sweets then you can have sweets once a week without it counting against you. Make sense?
No Fried Foods
No chips, corn dogs, chicken nuggets, French fries, etc. You can have baked chips!
Daily Vitamin
Any vitamin will do!
8 cups water
8-8 oz. (64 oz) of water a day. Keep hydrated in the summer.
6 hours sleep
If kids wake you up in the middle of the night it doesn’t count against your hours. 6 hours is counted from the time you get in bed to the time you get up!
5 servings fruits/veggies
5 servings of fruits and vegetables combined. I will have examples of serving sizes.
10 min. Scriptures
It can be reading the Ensign too!
Morning & Evening Prayers
Yes, you have to get both. J
Personal Goal
This can be whatever you want! My goal might be to do a load of laundry every day Monday-Sat and then write in my journal on Sundays. It needs to be a daily goal and the goal needs to last for at least 5 weeks. If you want to, you can change your goal for the second 5 weeks.

Reward/Party
We will be starting Monday, June 13^th. The challenge will last 10 weeks ending August 21^st. At the end of the challenge we will have an “Accessory Auction”. Everyone participating in the challenge will bring accessories (purses, bags, earrings, bracelets, necklaces, watches, scarves, hair clips, embellishments, etc.). They can be new or used. If everyone brings items that would total about a $20 value then hopefully everyone would be able to walk away with something.

If you would like to participate, email me BEFORE the 13^th of June! If you want to you can email me your personal goal, but you don’t have to. I always feel more accountable for things when I tell someone, but it’s up to you. I’ll send you more details and charts to keep track of your points. If you know anyone that might be interested please feel free to forward this to them.

Thanks,
Heidi Terry