Ragnar Report......yes I did it...I used the song....I couldn't help it....

Wow....it is hard to believe the Ragnar has been and gone.

We will all be moving on to other things.

It was a fantastic experience from beginning to end.....including the building up to it with training, the physical discoveries made along the way, and all the way through to the end.

LOVED IT.

Here are just a few highlights from the last three days and nights.

These are just the photos off of my camera....there are many gaps and holes that will be filled in later when other team mate photos are posted.

We are the "Sole Sisters" team number 63

This is almost our whole team, van 1 had just finished our first leg, I had just come in before this shot, and had passed the wrist band off to Gina, and for some reason Jessica is missing from here.  Aubrey on the far right is the designated driver for van 2.  She has been on the team from the beginning, but during her recent marathon really messed up her knees.

We were super happy she was still able to participate. 

We had a bit of a rough start, 

the bike was reeking havoc on our plans.

It was important for us to take a bike so that we could pace our night time runners.  We wanted to be sure to have it to be able to keep our runners safe on the long lonely trail runs in the getto.

We were going to take our van, but the rack that Colleen brought would not fit into the hitch...sooooo we moved to her van.  Still having trouble getting the bike situated on the luggage type carrier we were tying to use.  After some valiant effort on her husbands part, and an hour later into the night....we finally found a neighbor to borrow an actual bike rack from and we were on our way.

We picked up Melissa in Cocoa and headed to Clearwater.

We were attempting to use our Tom-Tom, but it kept falling off the windshield and turning off and, and, and, it was just a huge pain.

I will just get to the point....we ended up missing our exit and had to back track about 45 minutes.

DISCLAIMER:

Yes, I was driving...but BEFORE the trip began I stated clearly that I would not be a good choice to navigate....I am a good driver, happy to do so....but I would need directions on where to go.

I am taking only partial credit.

It was a collective effort.

  

Our van 2 team mates enjoyed a night out to dinner as we fumbled our way through the night....

The next morning we awoke at 5:30am, to be there at 6:00 for our safety orientation, and to get Melissa off for her 7:00am start time.

UNFORTUNATELY......

we got lost on our way to the park, which was approximately 2 miles away.

I was NOT driving.

We finally made it, we rushed in got checked in making it through steps 1, 2, 3, and 4....

We were milling around....and the next thing we hear is 

5.....4......3....2.....1 

????? 

Whoooohhooooo.....screaming, cheering, and clapping.....HUH?

We race out of the blow up tent we are in and see the runners round the bend.....

Melissa is frantically trying to get her safety gear on, and untangle her head phones as we push her onto the starting track and tell her to kick it into high gear to catch up.

(Nothing like stretching out and gathering yourself before a run)

We were all kind of nervous for Wilson. 

(what I will call the other Melissa from here on out to eliminate confusion)

Melissa....I mean Wilson is one Awesome Chick!  She is my coupon mentor, the girl that got me started.

If there is a deal she will find it.

They are more prepared for the future than anyone else I know...meaning food storage.

She is a runner extraordinar....has done several marathons, etc.

She is a genealogy buff, and just started schooling her children at home this year!

Amazing....I don't know how she does it.

We were a little nervous about getting to the first exchange....weren't really sure how to read the map yet and were not convinced of the dependability of the stinky Tom-Tom.

So as we were pulling out to try and find it, we saw another van from the race and decided to just be smart and follow them to the exchange.

Whooohooo!

Nice one.

We followed them straight back to our hotel.

Oh my gosh....nooooooooo!

yep, they were just seeing their team off...this was their van #2.

(nice thought)

Anyway, they assisted us in figuring out how to get to the exchange.

While Melissa was running the rest of us were having the time of our lives.

We were watching for her....THERE SHE IS, she caught up!!

....we knew she would.

She was booking it so hard.  She was scared half out of her mind 

she would get lost, good motivator to catch up.

Emily is up.....Go Emily!

Emily hooked up w/ Bobby, one of the FishTail team girls.

These two were fast friends and had a great time running throughout the different legs.

The FishTail team girls are all wives to professional Bass fishermen that have their own show.

These girls had a camera crew with them the entire time, filming their every move.

It was an interesting added element to the whole experience.

Sounds like a pretty fun, adventuresome life.

Emily is a sweet heart....she and her husband have one cute as heck little boy,

about 15 months old I am going to guess.

They have been in the ward for a year??  Guessing again.

Em is my visiting teacher partner.  We have had some good, and interesting times together.

Looking forward to many more.

This is she and Jessica's first experience with running.

They have trained together like crazy.  

We are super proud of the two of them.

Jess is next, she has the two thumbs up.

She is a TROOPER!

She has had some knee trouble....it has been swollen throughout her past few weeks of training.

She does not complain, or whine AT ALL.

Sometimes I wish she would...so we could know how to help,

 but no.  She just goes on.

Jess is a fairly recent convert to the church.  She is a strong young lady.

Solid.

She was the first to bring up having a prayer for a team mate we were worried about, and made sure we got a quick scripture in before dozing off to sleep the night before.

Thanks Jess!

She has been one of our beloved teachers in primary for the past year or so.

She passed to Colleen ..... and Colleen to Kate.

KATE - Kate loves a good competition.

This race is right up her alley.

I credit Kate for getting me into running.  

She invited me to run with her in a Disney half marathon 4 years ago.  

I surprised myself and said yes.  We have had that sweet connection ever since.

She does not enjoy getting lost.

My turn!

Runner number 6 for our van.  I will hand off to the first runner of van number 2.

at my exchange it was a rip - off because they would not let any team members come up the hill to where we were to make the wrist band hand off.

They did sneak up to click off a few quick snap shots though.

My first leg was 7.9 I think.

I wish I had that Ragnar Bible now to look at and be able to give the accurate 

names and places we went through.

I am sure I can look it up online....but that sounds really hard.

This was a decent stretch.  Not super exciting.  It was on a running trail next to the highway.

The other side was county farms, mossy trees, and black berries.  

It was definitely beautiful,  

just no honking, waving, and cheering on from my team or any other passerby's.

After the exchange was made we went to this super yummy bagel deli to eat.

This is a "picture" Colleen took for us.

She has pretty bad eye sight....Love you girl!

Here is my cute running partner Shell (Gina is right behind her)....and Michelle - who is the last runner for van 2....which means she will bring the whole race home.

She has got to be one patient lady to be able to wait, and wait, and wait for her turn to finally 

roll around each leg.

She did an awesome job!

During our first break we took advantage of some R&R....it was a beautiful day.

We played some Phase Ten,  ate a ton of Veggies w/ the most delicious dip on earth, and a bunch of Energy bars....the chick pea ones, this time w/out the juice (much better).

This is Colleen our wonderful little Captain.

She got this thing started.

This is what Colleen did.  She planned and prepared and studied the Ragnar Bible and course.

She was constantly adding numbers and figuring out stuff.

She worried and fussed like any good mother would do over both vans.

She was so sleep deprived....kinda got scary toward the end of the last leg.

She started having some bad chest pain....after the race she finally got checked out in the first aide tent.

Her blood pressure was extremely low.  They prescribed sleep!!!

She is one of the best ladies I know.

She is a counselor in the primary with me.

She is the most patient person on earth.  I have not ever seen her get frazzled or shaken or upset.

She has a heart of gold, and deserves a truck load of blessings for all that she does.

Night time came and with it the "scary" runs.  

It was pretty cold.

I can't remember exactly what happened, but it seems like we had to boot Melissa out again, because of running late or getting lost and trying to get her to the exchange.

All I know is that the rest of us were counting our lucky stars at not being runner #1...we never had our barrings pulled together.  We were always sending her off in a panic of some kind.  

HURRY....RUN FOR YOUR LIFE.....GOOOOOOOOOOO......

We finally did find Wilson on the trail....and dang good thing we did.

The handy-dandy head lamp I had graciously loaned her was not worth dookie. 

 She could not see a thing.

She was the one person that said she could absolutely not run a trail run.

She would take any other leg....just NOT an off road run.

She has twisted her ankle and gone through tons of therapy.  She was told she would never run again....well she is lucky, she has worked very hard to be able to run, but is naturally very cautious.

Surprise and low and behold, she had the longest, worst, rockiest trail run of any of us.

When we found her we stuck with her.

We pumped the tunes, and she rocked her 8 miles, or whatever it was pretty hard.

Lots of gaps here.

We used everyones cameras...so I don't have every runner (yet).

But hehe....I have mine right here.

This was so fun.

Felt amazing!  I took it slow to stay w/ this Fishtail - Stacey.

No way did I want to run by myself at night.

The team came by and we jammed out as we ran.

So much fun.

This was the time I would have wanted to keep on running....  Felt very good.

This was only 4 miles, or there abouts.

After our night runs we headed over to Wilson's inlaws home for a hot shower and a 3hour nap.

Deliiiiisssshhhhh.

Slept like a baby, except for when Kate was giving me running commands 

and speaking in gibberish to me.

Got up with the text that told us van 2 was w/in 40 minutes of the next exchange.

5:00am I think.

No prob.  We got up, and got moving.

We made it to our exchange seamlessly.....too seamlessly.

That had us really worried.....Where in the heck was Melissa....she should be here by now.  What is going on?

OH MY HECK!

We were at the wrong exchange....no wonder it was so perfect.

Emily got a late start, she had really wanted to run w/ Bobby...it was not to be for this run.

We stuck by her and cheered her on every few miles.

Got her water and kept her pumped.

Fast forward again...this is my last leg.

When I saw the map of my run I saw that I would be running around a lake for almost the entire time.  7.8 I think.  I was super thrilled with that.

The run started out pretty pathetic.  Leap frogged several busy streets, jockeyed my way onto the highway shoulder and found myself running, yes, along side a body of water.  But almost completely obstructed by unattractive shabby trees and over growth.

great. 

I found myself waiting and wondering when my girls would be by, honking, screaming, and waving.

Kept waiting for the beep, beep, beep......

they came at 1.56 mile.  I was ready for it.

Click - turn on the turbo boost.

Music up two notches.....

adrenaline running.

This is when my last run began to get FLIPPING AMAZING!

The trees went away and the view opened up to Gorgeous.

You cannot tell in these photos but it was so, so perfect.

One of the funnest sights was a HUGE convoy of motorcycles....they were led and followed by a police escort...headed to a funeral I was guessing.

There had to have been over a hundred....team...am I over shooting???

That is what it seemed like to me.

They were honking and cheering.

After they had finally all passed, one couple came back.  They pulled up right in front of me...facing me about a block off.  Hmmmm...... it was an older couple, 

they said they just wanted to wish me luck for my race.

Really?

That was pretty dang sweet of them!

The water was calm and smooth. Lots of duck families, boats, and contented fishermen, 

smiling and waving.

 It took me back to my own Satellite Beach.

My water....we have been here 10 years...it does feel like mine now.

I thought of all the running of the causeway and watching the sun come up on the water.

I remembered all the times of marveling at the beauty that surrounds us. 

I felt very happy, grateful, and amazed.

My team went by several more times....each time I pumped it up.

Tried to put on a little side show for them.

Do the strong man run...that sort of thing....a mini comedy act.

But I gotta tell ya....a person only has so much turbo available in one run.

I was getting scared they would come by again and I would not be able to live up to my teams expectations.

They didn't....I only had the exchange with Gina to go.

Just after the run....that is all for van 1.

Now we wait.

We headed off to find a Chilli's.

After gorging.....we decided to go find Shelly.

We were completely shocked to actually pull that off.  This was one of my favorite parts of the run....

hooking up with and cheering my little buddy on.

Since we were in different vans we really didn't hang at all....just a quick hi five here....a text there...and so forth.

Here she is coming in for her exchange.

We headed all the way to Daytona after that.

We cleaned out the van and settled in for the Grand Finale.

We had time to kill....literally time to plan a murder and kill.....Kate and I settled for a movie.

The rest of the crew wanted to do their own thing, but this was just the ticket as far a I was concerned.

Kate took some convincing.  She was extremely nervous about us missing them coming accross the finish line...she was REALLY wanting her metal.

I had to promise w/ my life that I would keep my phone on vibrate and not take 

my hand off it the entire movie.

Done.  

The Next Three Days was the only show that was available to us.

Neither of us had ever heard a thing about it.

The ticket girl did not have a clue, or anything to offer us in way of a hint as to what it was about.

But it had Russell Crowe, so we went for it on a leap of faith...and a little desperation for anything to pass the time besides dancing to the live karaoke band.

watch trailer 

I will tell you here and now...

THAT WAS HANDS DOWN THE BEST SHOW I HAVE EVER SEEN.

I swear it.

It starts out a little ify......do not give up.

Stay the course...but go see it.  I am taking Kevin this week no matter what.

You can watch the trailer if you want....but

I suggest going in blind like we did.  It was pretty sweet that way.

After the movie got over we hussled down to the rest rooms.

Before Kate went in she asked me to please give van 2 a call to see where they were.

Sure...no problem.

hmmmmmm, what's this.....my phone if off....?  huh?  Dead...it will not even turn on.

I am dead meat.

I had to tell her the truth....we beat it out of there lickity split. 

Ran down the stairs....and found our team calmly chatting away....gasp, sputter....are we too late??

No, they got lost.

one of their runners got off trail and ran 2 1/2 miles in the wrong direction.....ohhhhh.

They will still be A WHILE.

Let me just say now that we were the last team in. 

The second we ran through they tore everything down around us.
Most people were already gone.

It was quite the ending.
It made no difference to us what place we came in.
The difference was in the finishing....and we did it!
201 miles under our belts.

Michelle had a wonderful experience w/ her run and an answer to prayer.

She received a little escort through a very rough part of town and through to the end of the race.

An 11 year old kid on a bike was her new best friend.

It was a pretty cool experience. 

I would do it again in an instant.

We learned a lot from this first attempt.

I am thrilled my wonderful husband supports my hopes and dreams.

He is happy to let me go off and have some fun now and then.

Love you!

Love you to Sole Sisters......please send your photos and your thoughts on the trip.

Van 2 - you guys rocked so hard.

You had a way tougher race than we did....and we knew it.

We were singing your praises non-stop!!

It was fun to meet and hang a little with you all.

Love, M

P.S. if you have not had enough and want the perspective from van 2 -

go to Shelly's blog.  I am sure she will be updating soon.