Reel them in Jaren!

Wasatch Back this year.... well I guess for me it was easier. Sort of. Physically - Yup. Mentally - I would put it as harder. Sitting in the van driving... wowsers. If I could have ripped off my knee and just run with a peg leg I would have.

I did get the pleasure of pacing Jenny, Chan, King, and my husband every once in a while. I also got to be the water delivery mechanism.


And I was the team morale booster. As you can see!!

I will say that it was really cool to support Jaren, and just have this race be about him. He did a great job, and I'm truly amazed at what he can put his body through without training. Honestly, it's crazy. But I'm even more humbled by his positive attitude. There he was - dying on the road (so to speak), and yet he was laughing it up, and pretending to reel in his next kill.

Van 2 was awesome. Eric Beins broke out with some Dr. Phil that honestly puts the Crocodile hunter in check. Eric was also King of the Ragnar this year. He never stopped running, and he looked like a machine - kind of like terminator - only his one eye that was staring at us was when he bent over and showed us the "Red Eye" or "pink moonbeam" as he called it.

Chan was hilarious. She is one ball of determination. I thought she was going to kill us all after mile 1 on her first run. She didn't look like she really loved the idea of finishing the race - but she just kept going, and going, and going. Through tears, through pain, and through a 200 pound woman in sweats!

Eric King and Greg performed well. They spoke little. Eric found the true meaning of pain on the Pre-Ragnar. His quote of "words don't even describe this..." shall be remembered. As well as creating a tradition to have the team cripple (this year it was me) pace him up the run.

Jenny - oh Jenny. She cried at a fake Nun for goodness sake. She was so tired, and a wee bit emotional in the morning (took over for me) - and when she saw a fake nun - she started bawling. When we asked if she knew it was a fake nun, she said yes. And she kept crying. Then when we asked why she was crying she said, "Cuz she serves the Lord." Which has to be one of the cutest (and most confusing) statements I've ever heard during a race.

Then just today, I read Lena's blog, and was curious at how I would fare in an animal attack. Apparently I am built for it. Which I find interesting, I can take every attack and survive except for a Gorilla? How does this relate to Wasatch Back you ask?

I find it funny that I can supposedly take all these attacks - and yet it's my knee that ends up killing me every time. So maybe, the human attacks ratio isn't quite accurate. Because I seem to be killing myself. Great. Knee suicide.

In the end I was grateful to be a part of the race, even though I wasn't officially able to run it this year. I will say that it was a privilege and honor to see so many people pushing themselves physically and mentally. It's a hard race - and those that are able to run it - hopefully they appreciate the gift that is. As for Jaren - maybe someday he'll actually train for a race.

Nah, that's probably crazy talk!