Leg 23 (4.6 miles) started at around 6:15 am Saturday morning and after a night of basically no sleep and eating carb loaded energy food, I was not feeling real great. Spent some quality time in the infamous honey bucket before the start and then was off again. Had some more road kill on this leg but once again became road kill to one guy who was just plain flying. My stomach started to cramp about midway through this leg and I wasn’t even able to get it up to “puke pace” although puking might have helped at this point. This leg was my only leg that had anything one might consider flat, but for a guy from the flattest spot in Vegas it was hilly.
Was able to get about an hour of sleep (it felt great) in between these two legs but as you will see from leg 35 it didn't do me much good. We slept on the wrestling mats on the floor of the South Summit high school gym along with many other stinky sweaty runners.
Leg 35 (6.9 miles straight off a dang cliff 2000 ft elevation loss) I knew this leg would be steep but I had no idea I wouldn’t be able to average faster than 8:10/mile all the way down. By this point in the race my legs and body were completely shot, I had no energy, no sleep and I was afraid if I got going too fast I would eat pavement. So in order to stay upright I had the breaks on the whole way down the hill. I have never been this miserable during any run including the finish of any marathon. By mile 4 the guys in the van could tell I was hurting and were asking if I wanted someone to finish for me…….NO WAY!!! I stuck it out and made it through and thought I was going to die at the end. As unbelievable as it may seem, I didn’t get passed on this leg but had quite a bit of road kill. I guess everyone else was hurting just as bad as I was. Even though this leg is mostly down hill it has a couple of sections were it goes up some short but steep hills and switching from down hill to uphill mode proved to be impossible for me as I found myself walking the last uphill section in order to survive.
In retrospect, I really had a good time and enjoyed the guys I was with and the fun things we did to keep ourselves entertained. This team was put together by a member or our stake presidency and included men of all ages from the stake from 17 years to over 50. If asked, I would do it again. I know I would do some things different, like get more sleep and change up the diet a bit. I would also like to be better trained on the hills because my calves and quads are killing me right now.
You know I am a real running nerd, I already have the white Ragnar sticker on the back window of my car.
Final Results: Time: 26:33:35 Overall: 105/535 Mens Open: 18/81 Not bad at all for a team of RAGNAR rookies from sin city.
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