Retro #3 - Bottle Rocket Wars

When I was growing up the biggest holiday of the year was July 3rd, or aka the 4th of July eve. This was the day that the annual bottle rocket wars were held. Before I go on, I must say that I in no way condone these less than intelligent actions I did as a teenager. I have long since reformed my ways. Besides, Jenny will not allow me to buy fireworks. She's afraid that I will corrupt the next generation, which is probably a valid point.

The bottle rocket war festivities began promptly at dusk. All teenagers just a few bricks shy of a load were invited to attend, that generally included everyone in town. Team captains were selected and by the flip of a coin decided which team had high ground and who had the low ground. The loser of the toss got to choose first, usually the person with the best ammo. Once teams were selected we headed on down to the Honda Trails, a strip of land on Forest Service ground next to the lake.

The weapons of choice were firecrackers, bottle rockets, fountains, jumping jacks, roman candles, and the occasional M80. For weeks prior to the event, launch weapons were built, tested and modified. They usually consisted as such things as sawed off ski poles and small diameter pipes with sights built onto the barrels. They were amazingly accurate at 150 feet.

This is typically how the battle went. A fountain was lit on the old road between the two opposing sides to signify the start of the battle. In the mean time, the teams were strategically placing people along the battlefronts with a few members doing some sneaking around the side ready for a flanking maneuver. The long range bottle rocket guns were sent off firing to keep the opposing teams lying low in their foxholes, while the roman candle brigades moved in and laid down heavy artillery from the flanks. This was a sight to behold as this totally lit up the sky as fireball after fireball was launched down on those brave enough to remain in their foxholes. Once the enemy was sufficiently shell shocked, a lone man would run up to the fox hole and launch a grenade which consisted of a brick of several hundred firecrackers that would usually roust any remaining troops. The victorious side would then move into this territory and repeat the process again until the entire enemy territory was captured.

Ok, I admit, this was totally stupid, dangerous, and completely irresponsible. I am amazed that we didn't put any eyes out or burn down the town. If I saw any kids doing that today, I wouldn't wait for the cops to arrive, I would simply go and kick teenage hiney myself. But...for some reason I remember those times as some of the funnest of my life.

Diary of a WBF part 3 (climax to the trilogy)

Part three of a three part series


SEGMENT THREE: THRILL?!! THAT AIN'T NO BLUEBERRY HILL

We were now finished with the middle segment of the race walking back to the sturgeon at Kamas High. I think that we were all feeling the affects of the lack of sleep. I personally was in that loopy state where you kind of feel silly and everything becomes funny to you. That is when we saw the wolf man. As we were pulling out of the parking lot to head on down the road, there was this guy without a shirt on that had to be the most hairy creature that I have ever seen. Probably for the next 30 minutes we were making the most silly jokes and comments about this guy. It was maybe not a nice thing to be doing, but it sure was a nice distraction from having to think about my most dreaded segment that was still ahead of me: Guardsman Pass.

By the time we drove by Heidi, she was well into the last leg of her race. We all...well mainly me, was complaining that van #1 was going to be done with their race pretty quick, and most of their last legs were 2.5 to 3.5 miles long. At this point, those legs sounded really good too; like a stroll in the park on a nice cool summer's day.

We pointed the sturgeon towards Heber City to go and get some breakfast. Funny thing about food, at about this time in a race, everything begins to become community property. Not because that is the way anyone planned it, but I think that you get too tired to figure out if you are eating anyone else's treat before you gobble it down. I unfortunately, drank Lisa's gatorade when I mistook it for one that I had in the other cooler. Darin was chowing down on a bag of licorice and so I joined in with him. After a while I got a little nervous when I remembered Darin's eating habits and asked him whose licorice it was. Darin said that he thought it was George's. Whoops, all I can say is sorry Lisa and George.

A couple of things struck my interest as we drove to Heber. First was that we passed a man in a wheel chair in the race that was climbing a huge hill before you get to Heber. You could see how difficult it was to push the wheels up the incline. It was so steep that if you stopped for a split second you'd start rolling backwards down the hill. He was an inspiration to me. If he could do it, then I could make it through my last leg as well. The other thing that struck me was that no matter how many people we passed, that there seemed to be a never ending supply of people running and plodding down the road. Were we all crazy? What was it that kept us all going? I thought to myself, there really is something spectacular about accomplishing something hard. I like a quote that I heard by a parent of a contestant at the national spelling bee competition, in a documentary called Spellbound, "The only things that we truly value in life are those things that are difficult to achieve." or something close to that.

Food choice was difficult to make in Heber. It was still morning and we wanted some breakfast, but we didn't have a lot of time. We finally settled on MacDonald's, I think mainly by default. Lisa didn't eat anything because it was getting too close to her run time, and the Mickey D's grub, I don't think would clear her system in time. Good decision, Lisa. Jon bought food but hardly ate anything. I think his digestive track was starting to cause him problems. As for me I would have eaten a horse if they served it. I think the same goes for Darin. I don't know, he might have had a horse packed away in the sturgeon. By any means we wanted to get to our last major exchange point as quickly as we could so that we could try and get some sleep.

We arrived at the exchange point with about 1 1/2 hours before Lisa's leg would start. All morning the clouds had been building and there had been some small showers even back to the end of Jon's leg earlier in the morning. Darin and I had a good view of the mountains and Guardsman Pass at this time. The clouds were laying heavy on the mountains as storm squall after squall was passing over the pass. Great, this meant that not only would we have the pain of the climb, but we would probably end up doing it in the rain as well as on muddy dirt roads. Also, we were a little concerned about lightning. The more I thought about it, maybe a well placed lightning strike near the start of my run would end all of the misery for me quickly. I had to keep morbid thoughts like that out of my head.

I quickly whipped out my sleeping bag and set an alarm so I wouldn't over sleep, and looked for a place to sack out. The grass was all wet from a recent rain shower that had just passed through, so I settled on a concrete sidewalk. I was so tired, it really didn't matter. I was just blissfully drifting off to sleep when I started to feel the rain drops on my head. I wasn't about to let it deter me. Jon and Darin who had sacked out next to me on the sidewalk gave up and headed for shelter. I tried to stick it out until, the drops became a pretty heavy drizzle. That's when I became resigned to the fact that I wasn't going to get any sleep during this race. I toughed out the rest of the time semi-reclined in the sturgeon.

The time we had predicted that Lisa would start had come and gone. We drove the sturgeon out onto the road and parked a ways from the start so that we could make a clean get away. Lisa, we left on her own to make the exchange. When almost 10 minutes had passed from when we thought Lisa would run by, I started having thoughts that maybe she had passed us before we got out on the road and that she was going to be done with her leg wondering where we went. So Jon got out and started walking back to the start. It wasn't long after this that Lisa came flying by. Once again, she was flying down the road, making it look easy. While a large majority of the runners were really looking beat by this time, she was looking as strong as ever. As a curious side note, We noticed that most of the people running during this leg were women. We couldn't decide if it just was that more women ran this leg or if there were actually more women in the race. By any means, no one passed Lisa and she passed maybe close to a dozen. The rain started coming down pretty good on George on his leg. His leg was over 6 miles long and had a steady climb up into the town of Midway to the base of Guardsman pass. It really wasn't that easy of a leg. George was a trooper, though, and hung in there.

With about a mile and a half to go for George's leg we drove up to my exchange point. I was really getting nervous. Though, I had never run this segment before, I had tried to simulate it in my training by running Snowbasin and Trappers Loop. Darin and I ran Trapper's the week before, to give us a final taste of what we were in store for. I started wondering if there was a connection between adrenaline and having to take a pee. It seemed that one always followed after the other. I then started wondering if I was peeing out all of my adrenaline. I needed to keep it right in side of me where it could do some good. Better judgment finally prevailed and I decided I better go before I had an accident on the course. I was afraid that I wouldn't get back to the start in time for the exchange so I ran as quickly as I could over to the port-a-potties. I was in such a hurry that I forgot to lock the door, and yes, as you would expect at times like this, a lady came right in on me with my pants down. I didn't have time to be embarrassed. I managed to get an "I'm sorry" out as she lectured me about locking the door behind me. Not locking the door to a port-a-potty may be common practice to some of you, but I can't think of a worse thing than to have yourself exposed to the world in such a humble circumstance. So, I thought that the lecture was a little overboard.

I got back to the start before George arrived. Unfortunately, someone just ahead of George arrived with no one there to make the exchange. We had seen this done a few times along the race. I would have been totally upset by this, but it appeared that all of these people took it in stride, maybe just happy to be done with misery of their race legs. My leg started out on a little bit of level before it started into a steep climb. My plan was to run this as quickly as I could and then when I hit the steep stuff to shift it down into low gear and just methodically grind it out. I had been finding that I wasn't getting enough oxygen to my limbs when I had been practicing hills. I found that if I changed my breathing to a hyper ventilating state, that amazingly, my legs seemed to respond better. This is a little bit dangerous, though, because if I were doing this while not running, I would probably pass out from being light headed. This also is a hard thing to maintain. It is actually hard work and takes a lot of focus and energy.

George came and made the pass off. He was looking like he was glad the race was done for him. I started off with a guy right ahead of me and one right behind me. When I felt how my legs were responding, I quickly decided that the mad dash to the base of the hill plan was going out the door. I instead settled into a moderate pace. I caught and passed the guy ahead of me and the guy behind me, whose name was Mark, passed me. Mark and I would get real acquainted on this leg. Mark made some comment to us as he passed about how much fun we were going to have on this climb. I made some flippant comment back that I was going to break out my bungee cord and strap it onto him to pull me along.

We left the third guy behind, as I shadowed Mark up the hill, maybe 50-100 behind. By the mile mark we were well into the climb and I knew that I was in trouble. Another one of my plans was to keep running for as long as possible. I knew that there might be a possibility that eventually I would be reduced to walking. I knew that once you walk, it is always hard to get back into a rhythm of running. If you just keep running, that eventually you might be able to maintain a meager pace. The climb between mile one and two was brutal. Much harder than the climbs up Trapper's and Snowbasin. Similar to one I would do up the old Trapper's Loop road, but then it was only about 1/2 mile long. Mark and I had been closing in on a couple of women ahead of us. I was so focused on what was going on up ahead of me, I forgot to maintain my breathing technique. The pain was pretty intense. I recognized the symptoms that I had suffered once on a hike with Darin and Jon on Mount Nebo, which is just shy of 12,000 feet. On that hike I had experience the effects of pulmonary edema (high-altitude sickness). That is where your lungs start filling up with water and you are not able to supply your body with enough oxygen. I remembered how my legs felt. It was like my brain would give the commands to the legs but they were not able to respond. Though, in this case my lungs were not filling up with water, but I recognized the signs of my limbs not getting enough oxygen to work effectively.

And then it happened, I saw Mark ahead of me go into a walk. My body instantly reacted and went into a walk as well. Dang, I was mad at myself. I was going to have a hard time, establishing a run rhythm again. I immediately revised my plans to accommodate the new situation. I knew that the walking needed to only be a short rest to get my wind, but I still needed to push it hard in a power walk. I then started a 3:1 system, where I would walk for 20 paces and then run for 60. I passed the sturgeon a few times during this part of the climb. It just so happened that I was always in a walk at these times. I felt like I was letting my team down. The method was not entirely unsuccessful. I was able to pass a couple of people. I caught up with Mark, and for a time, I would go ahead of him, and then he would go ahead of me. Sometimes we would be walking or running along side of each other. There is nothing more bonding than doing that. During this time, a little kid, maybe 12 years old, passed me. This really bugged me because I didn't want to be passed.

There was also a girl that was just ahead of Mark and me, that I had closed the gap on, but could not seem to pass. I struggled to try and keep up with her. By this time I was starting to leave Mark behind. I would almost catch her and then I would stop to walk a little more. Finally, I saw the mountain get the best of this girl. She slowed temporarily to a walk. A sign of weakness. I knew then that I could and had, to catch her. With a little more that a mile to go in my 3.6 mile leg. I decided that I was done walking and that I had to tough it out and keep running. I caught and passed this girl and eventually passed a couple of more guys. Eventually, I think that the grade got a little flatter or I got back a running rhythm again, because the running became a little easier. I rounded a corner that exposed itself out on the ridge of the mountain, and I could see down into the valley. I thought to myself, I have climbed a lot of elevation in a short time. I had about 1/2 mile to go. I could see no one behind me, and I kept plugging along. With about 250 yards to go, I could see someone behind me 100 yards making good time. I vowed that I was not going to be passed again. So I put my mind into sprint mode and made off to the finish line as fast as I could. My mind was thinking I was sprinting, my body was in as much pain as I remember when you are running the 400 meter race (most painful sprint that I know of), but in reality I probably wasn't going that fast. But I did it and made it without being caught, and in fact, I think that I lengthened the gap to that runner.

When I handed off to Darin, I was actually mad because I felt like that I could have done better. I didn't want to get back in the sturgeon admitting defeat to the mountain. So, I wanted to keep going up the mountain. I power walked a couple hundred yards more before I got back into the sturgeon. The one blessing of the whole thing was that I realized that I had just run through a break in the rain. Darin was getting the same break, as well. I ended up running the leg in 42 minutes. I was shooting to be under 40. My pace ended up being an average of about 11:50 minute miles.

I was surprised that I seemed to recover quickly. By the time we caught up to Darin, who was just past his first 1/2 mile, I wanted to get back out and run again, to avenge myself of the walking that I had done. It is true, though, that everyone that I saw on the mountain when we ran this RAGNAR section, did some walking. I'm sure that those darn BYU cross country guys didn't though. Dang it all.

Darin was complaining when we passed him and he looked like I must have when the mountain was kicking my butt, but I knew he had plenty in him and he kept plugging on. At his two mile mark we offered him some gatorade and he tried to drink it and could not swallow it and had to spit it out. He said that he felt like he was going to throw up. He kept on going. Here again I was glad that it hadn't rained on us but was cool and overcast. We couldn't have asked for better conditions. I can only imagine what it would have been like to be running in the hot sun on this climb. When Darin neared the top, close to 9000 feet. The run turned into a series of up and down hills, that I think helped him catch his breath. Darin finished his 4 mile leg in just over 48 minutes or a pace of 12:08 minutes per mile.

Next up was Michael, who now was going to run his specialty: the down hill run. His leg was 7.3 miles and dropped 2000 feet into Park City. First, he had to climb a couple of hundred feet to the top of the pass, and then cruise. When we caught up to him, he was all ready in his down hill run, just flying. He was passing people left and right as he was going. He did have one little section where it turned back up hill for a minute, but then it was back to going down again. Almost immediately, the rain started falling on him. He was pretty wet by the time he got to the bottom. He averaged somewhere in the 7 minute range per mile.

Jon took off on the final glory leg. It was a 5.1 mile leg that dropped just over 500 feet. We cruised down to the end to get ready for the final run across the finish line. Everyone on your team gets to meet up with your final runner and you can all run across the finish line together. The traffic jam at the end was incredible and we thought that we weren't going to get to the finish line before Jon. We parked and walked quickly up to the finish line. This was at the Park City sports complex. The final 100 yard run was across astro-turf with a narrow runway lined with people on either side cheering wildly. It was a great party atmosphere. We got up to the spot where the runners meet their final runner. Our van #1 folks were lagging behind somewhere and we were afraid that they wouldn't arrive before Jon got to the finish line. Sure enough, Jon came along and the rest of our people hadn't got there yet. Jon ran his last leg at a nice comfortable pace, but as I said before, his pace is very deceptive. As he came in, there was a group behind him that decided that they were going to make a mad dash sprint to the finish line. All of a sudden Jon turned it on and made a incredible sprint to the finish line with the rest of us trying to catch up so we could finish with him.

Our time flashed up on the electronic board. I noticed that we had finished in 27 hours something. Later the official result showed that we had finished in 27 hours 31 minutes and 4.4 seconds. This placed us at 106 out of 679 teams or in the top 15%. During the whole race there was really no way for us to tell where we were compared to everyone else. I was pleasantly surprised and pleased with our finish. They then placed a triumphant medal over heads that weighed, it felt like, 39 lbs. to signify our completion and participation in the event. I'm sure that the winner's won a bottle of coke or something. Speaking of bottles. I noticed that the medal was actually a bottle opener. I'm sure that it was going to be used by many a team in celebration later that night. Just as we crossed the finish line, the rest of our team showed up. We were then able to make take a triumphant photo of the team. Hopefully, when Michael sends this to me, I'll be able to post the picture.

We came to find that the most difficult part of the race was actually getting out of Park City. When we got back to the sturgeon we found that we had cars parked at a stand still nose to tail in both directions. Finally after much consternation and with a little help from some race volunteers we were able to get turned in the right direction of the flow of traffic and got out of town. That felt like it took us 28 hours to do.

In all it was a great experience and I look forward to doing it again. Where else can you, as my wife puts it, "spent $85 plus dollars to go sleep deprived and run yourself to death all night long to get a shirt and a bottle opener."

Yeah Man, count me in.

Diary of a WBF part 2

2nd Segment of a three part Series.

SEGMENT TWO: TO SLEEP OR NOT TO SLEEP

We had just completed our first full segments of the race. We loaded up Jon at Snowbasin and we headed out to go to South Weber to shower and have dinner at Michael's home and hopefully catch a little bit of sleep. As we drove down the Snowbasin road we passed Heidi and cheered her on. I felt some pretty good admiration for her. She was running a pretty hard leg. It first climbs about 350 feet and them drops nearly 1800 feet down into Mountain Green, a distance of 8.5 miles. This is the second longest segment of the entire race. If your knees are going to give out on you, it would probably be on this leg.

We arrived at Michael's well after 10 p.m. We dropped Darin off at his house, who also, lives in South Weber and George crossed the street over to his house. We all took quick showers and then, Michael fed us a pasta dinner to load us up on some carbs. Darin's wife dropped him back off with us and George stayed over at his house. It was about 11:30 p.m. when we finished. We decided that we needed to leave to get back on the course at 12:30 a.m. So, Lisa and Darin crashed on some couches and Jon and I grabbed our sleeping bags and laid out on the floor. I was too afraid to fall asleep fearing that for some reason I wouldn't wake until morning and totally miss our next legs. So, I laid in the dark trying to recover the best that I knew how. At 12:30 a.m. George met back up with us and we loaded up and headed out. As we drove to Morgan, we played a little phone tag with van #1. The phone coverage was a little spotty. When we got to just below east canyon, we found out that they were about 7 miles out. We followed the narrow windy road up to East Canyon Reservoir. The travel was slow and go with all of the runners on the road with their support vehicles.

We found it quite amusing to watch the tail lights bobbing back and forth with their reflective vests. You could sure tell the different running styles by watching the movement of the lights. Here as well, there were some unique decorations. Their were some people who had adorned themselves with Christmas Lights. It was all quite entertaining. Another neat thing was that after dark, racers could have pacers either on foot or bike. So, there were also quite a few bikes on the road now with the runners. This also was a long segment with some pretty intense climbing.

We arrived at the next major exchange at East Canyon State Park. Here again was a swarm of people and cars. We decided that the race had to have bought out all of the campsites for the night. Could you imagine trying to camp with over 7000 people milling around all night long. We made brief contact with van #1 and found out that they had lost their runner. Great. This was the same runner that had passed out on his previous leg. We hoped that he hadn't ended up in a ditch on the side of the road somewhere. I had a bunch of Freebie gift items that I had received from a Triathlon that I ran in a couple of years ago, that had some electrolyte pills and some hammer gel. I popped a few electolyte pills and suck down on the hammer goo, which actually tasted ok. I was hoping that the energy would hit at the right time when I hit my next leg.

The temp was in the mid 40's and windy as we waited for our runner exchange with Lisa. Our guy finally made it and Lisa was off and running again. This was her toughest leg. It was short, only 3.8 miles but with a total elevation gain of 626 feet. She flew up the mountain at her usual 7:45 pace. She ended up with 17 kills on that leg.

George then had to run down hill for 7 miles with a vertical drop of nearly a 1000 feet. He kept a great pace going that hovered between 8:00 and 8:15 until he got to the last mile or so which was more flat. I am sure that after running for 6 miles down hill. The flat probably felt like you were running in quick sand.

My leg was up next. I put on a thin sweat shirt because I was feeling a little cold. It was just after 3:00 a.m. and I was shooting to finish my 9.6 miles in 1 1/2 hours. I put the headphones back on and cranked the music. This time I decided that I better not shoot out so quickly as I did the time before. When George arrived, he looked pretty tired. We made the exchange and I headed out. I slipped into a nice quick pace and felt really good. I actually really enjoy running in the dark and the temperature in the mid 40's felt just great. I find that when I have done long runs that I run faster in my later miles than in my beginning miles. This was the case here. I immediately, began to pass people. Each time that I passed someone, I felt like I kept going faster and it felt good. The sturgeon only stopped every couple of miles to check on me, which is what I wanted. It felt good to just zone out and run without any major distraction. At about the 2 1/2 mile mark, there was a guy that blew by me as if I was standing still. All I could say was, "what the..." Later I realized that it must have been the BYU cross country team who actually finished the race in a little more that 17 hours. Not much later after that there were a couple of other guys that passed me but they were not going quite as fast. It made sense that the Elite running teams should be making there way through the ranks to us by about his time. My first difficulty came as I rounded the corner from the town of Echo to head up the canyon just a little way. The grade was nothing but the headwind was terrible. the wind must have been gusting from 30-40 miles an hour. It was hard on everyone else as well, as I passed a few more people. We then passed under the interstate and headed back out of the canyon with the wind at our backs. Nothing like a little wind beneath your wings. As I rounded out of the canyon I started to make the climb up onto the dam at Echo Reservoir. I was now at the halfway point. This hill was a little painful, but I gritted it out thinking that it was only going to be a short while. I left a few more kills behind. At this point I passed a few people who were now walking. There continued to be a few ups and downs in this section, so I was still having a hard time shaking off the pain from the hill climb. Eventually it passed and I was feeling pretty good again. As I neared the mile to go mark I started to pick up the pace again as I anticipated getting to the end. As I rounded the corner going into Coalville, I saw several more people ahead of me. I wasn't going to let some one finish ahead of me again like I did on the first leg. The last block and a half I pushed it into a near sprint and passed all of the people that were between me and the finish line.

I saw Darin crossing the street over to the exchange point and could see that he had not seen me coming. So I started yelling out his name. He finally caught sight of me and had the look of terror in his eyes, like, "oh crap, I'm not ready". I handed him the bracelet but he was fiercely trying to get his watch timer reset. I think we blew a whole 5 or 6 seconds there. I looked down at my watch and I had finished in 1 hour 15 minutes or about a 7:50 pace. I finished the leg with 23 kills. I also had been passed by 4. I saw none of the rest of my group, so I wondered around aimlessly for a minute or two until I saw Lisa. I loaded up and we headed down the road towards Darin.

We caught up with Darin after he had passed his first mile. His leg was 7.7 miles. the Darkness was slowly dissipating as it was now just morning instead or night. Darin plugged along at a good pace, but he looked like he was in severe discomfort. He kept a constant pace through the whole time. By this time, George was sound asleep in the back. I was antsy and was afraid that I was going to stiffen up. So whenever we stopped ahead of Darin, I got out and walked around to keep my legs lose. Darin finished his leg with a 8:10 pace.

Michael next took off on his 7.3 mile leg that had over 500 feet of vertical climb up past Rock port Reservoir. He ran a nice solid leg and finished with an identical 8:10 pace to Darin's. It was light enough for his leg that he wasn't required to wear a headlamp and only needed reflectivity. He had one small incidence where he was passing a lady at the same time as another guy who almost ran Michael off the road. Michael flashed a few gestures and gang signs, I was pretty sure, but he denied that it wasn't anything other than raising his hands in aspiration.

Jon took off on our final leg of the middle section on a slow easy pace. He had 5.2 miles to run and a 450 foot climb. By this time we were seeing people that looked like warmed over death running on the road. Most people were fine, but there were those that looked like their knees were about to blow out and they were hobbling along with out any cartilage. Jon finished his leg in just over 9 min miles. Here again, he didn't look winded at all and it appears that he could have kept on going for another 200 miles this way.

We then finished out our middle legs at the Kamas high school.

Diary of a Wasatch Back Freak

1st segment of a three part series

SEGMENT ONE: ADRENALINE JUNKY

I woke with nervousness, not knowing how I should feel for the day. Every time I thought of the race, adrenaline started racing through my veins. That stuff is as precious as gold, so I tried to keep my mind off the race. Our team would start the race at 12:30 p.m. and I wouldn't run until after 6:00 p.m. Jenny wanted to go to a garage sale, so I went with her to that. After Megan needed to go to a softball practice that would take me up to about 11:30 a.m. So I picked up her cousin Lissa first, drove home and got Megan and took them to softball practice. While they were at the practice, I stopped to fill up the Sturgeon (our green Ford Excursion) with gas and head over to the Valley Market, to buy some food for the race and to get me some breakfast of which I neglected to have first thing in the morning because I had been zoning everything out. I thought to myself that there would start to be runners coming by the store pretty soon. The first runners started at 7:00 a.m. in Logan. All the rest of the 650+ teams would be spaced out throughout the rest of the day until 6:00 p.m. They started the slower teams first and sent off the fastest teams last. Our 12:30 p.m. start time meant that somehow we were considered somewhere in the middle of the pack. We actually had been assigned a 2:30 p.m. start time. Our team captain, who's name is Michael Jordan ( now who can go wrong with a name like Michael Jordan), effectively convinced the race committee that we would be finishing in the dark the next night if we didn't get an earlier time. Deep down, it was probably more out of mercy for Me and my friend Darin who were slated to run, the two worst segments of the race the next day called the Ragnar. Actually, Darin's was called the Ragnar. His segment was the top part of Guardsman Pass above Park City, rising 1700 vertical feet topping out at over 9000 feet above sea level. My leg was the first half of the mountain, 1500 vertical feet to get to Darin's starting point (There are no cuss words the adequately describe that hellacious segment). We figured that we would be running those legs at 4-6 p.m. the next night at the hottest time of day during the longest day of the year. The earlier start time would hopefully give us a few degrees respite. The petition was granted and we got our 12:30 p.m. start time.

Back at the store, as I thought about the lead runners making it to this point, sometime 5-6 hours after their start time, the adrenaline started flowing again. It didn't help that there were some racing teams also buying last minute goodies before the race. I banged my head against the ice that I bought for the cooler that I was keeping in the sturgeon for my team's drinks. I hurried and rushed back over to Megan's practice, helped her team with some pitching and hitting practice and then raced home. I was now close to our team's race time start. Each team has 12 runners. They are broken up into 2 vans. My sturgeon was going to be van #2. The six people in my van had decided not to go the the start of the race but go to the start of segment 7, where our runners in van #2 would start. The plan was for our six to meet at my house at 4:30 p.m. and drive to our start.

So as our team was starting the race, I decided to mow my lawn, which usually takes a couple of hours; a good way to take my mind off the race. After the lawn was done, I laid down and tried to take a short nap. Talk about feeling like an over sugared kid waiting to get the ok to get up on Christmas morning to open presents. Finally, my team arrived. I actually only knew two members of my entire team before race day, Jon and Darin, who are work colleagues of mine. As they all got out of the car, my reaction was the same as my kids voiced to me at the time, but I told them to keep it quiet. The reaction was, "man, they are all old." of course this wasn't really a good assessment as I later found out that they were all great runners. So there was me, Darin, Jon, Michael, George, and Lisa. Darin and I are within months of each other at 41 and Lisa (who I hope doesn't mind me mentioning) was the oldest at 51.

We all exchanged greetings, all of them were very nice. Darin broke out a running shoe that his family painted gold and signed their names and well wishes on. Darin tied the shoe to the front of the grill on the sturgeon. I figured that would have to do and I regretted that I didn't decorate the vehicle. We loaded up the sturgeon and headed for Liberty to where our segments would start. By this time the road was loaded with runners. We passed a portion of the segment that I would be running. I got a nervous twinge down my spine. We also saw tons of support vehicles with the most outlandish decorations. My personal favorite vehicle was one that looked like a sheep camp set on a jacked up 4 wheel dually frame, with dead stuffed animals strapped to the side. The name of the team was Road Kill.

Speaking of Road Kill, there were a lot of vans that had road kills written on the side of their vehicles with tick marks. I soon learned that this meant how many people that their runners had passed while running. At the end of each group of six exchange points was a major exchange point. This is where the last runner from van #1 passes of to the first runner in van #2. Then later it is reversed when the last runner in van#2 passes off to the first runner in van #1. The major exchange points are like a party atmosphere. We were able to park right near the exchange point at Liberty Park when we slipped into a slot another van pulled out of. The first thing that I saw when I get out of the van was a guy sitting there with his feet in a bucket full of ice water. This made me a little nervous. The guy said that he had been suffering from shin splints and this was his recovery method. My thought was that he had two more legs to run and it didn't bode well for him if he was suffering this bad after the first leg.

The only way that we had to communicate with the other van was by cell phone. We hadn't been able to contact the other van while driving over, so we were a little nervous as to their whereabouts. Being the anal engineer that I am, I had created a little booklet, that had charts that showed when each runner should start and end his legs based on the pace that the team was averaging. Seeing that the rest of our van was engineers, as well, accept for Lisa, they all seemed to really appreciate it. We made some assumptions and determined when we should see our runners approach. Soon after, we did make phone contact. They were about 5 miles out and we were right on course to have them arrive about 40 minutes later at 6 p.m. So we enjoyed the party atmosphere for awhile. A band was playing, and there were a lot of racers sporting different costumes for the race. My favorite at this location was the men who were all sporting long, mullet wigs. The other thing that amazed me was that there seemed to be a large number of women who were showing off their latest body augmentations. Not that I really noticed.

Lisa was our first runner in our van. She had leg #7, which actually is considered probably the easiest legs of the race. Each of its three legs are 3.5 to 5.5 miles long. The exchange went cleanly. The first van had actually made real good time. They we averaging not much over 8 minute miles. Their legs had contained the grueling up and downhill of the Avon divide, over a 1000 feet up and then down. We didn't find out until later that our runner had passed out after he had handed off to Lisa. He laid unresponsive on the ground for 5 to 10 minutes. He did recover and was able to continue on with the race.

The hand off is made with a timing piece that is a metal wrist band that snaps around your wrist. We all hopped in the sturgeon and chased out after Lisa. She was approaching the first mile marker when we caught up to her. Lisa has a great running stride. Her arms ride high like a fast marathon runner and indeed she was our marathon runner. She has run numerous marathons and has acted a pacer for a runner on a 100 mile solo race. She has all the form of a good runner: slender, tone, and a great stride. I came to learn that she runs a 7:45 minute pace regardless if she is running on the flat or up a steed incline. She was consistently picking off runners in front of her. We cheered her on past the 1st mile and then later on after the 2 mile post. We then drove on to the next exchange to get George ready for leg #8. When Lisa had arrived she had picked up her pace and actually finished averaging about 7:45 miles. All of this started getting my adrenaline going again, and once again I tried to refocus to calm myself down.

The exchange to George also went smoothly and he darted off in what appeared to be a fast pace. In the sturgeon, Darin and I were talking strategies as to how to approach our first leg. The fear was if we headed out too fast, that we would not leave enough energy for our later legs. So we each vowed to rein it in a bit and not to start out too fast. I also noticed that it was very hot, in the upper 80s. I wasn't used to running at this high of temperature. Most of the running that I had been doing was either late at night (9-11 p.m.) or early in the morning (4:30 a.m.) I wasn't sure how this was going to affect me.

We also cheered George on at the mile points. George is short with a muscular build. For most of the legs he was wearing a do rag on his head, making him look like a Harley rider. George has also run in marathons in his younger years. George ended up running a pretty consistent 8:30 pace.

Next was me. By this time the adrenaline was pumping full throttle through my veins. My exchange point was at the top of middle fork run running 3.5 miles towards Huntsville. I called ahead to my family to let them know when I would be passing the corner that turned into Huntsville, so that they could watch as I ran by. I made one last trip to the port-a-potty, as I found that when you get nervous, that your bladder begins to shrink. There was a long dry spell of people before George came in, but a slug of people that was running up the road behind him. I got my MP3 player on and cranked the music. Lisa asked me what type of music that I was listening to. I didn't quite know what to say. The group that was currently singing was Third Eye Blind, but then quickly went to Leanne Rimes, followed by the Beach Boys. When George handed off to me, I forgot all of the planning that I had made with Darin. I took off on what I felt like was a sprint. It was total adrenaline driven. When I hit my fist quarter mile, I had scored my first kill. It felt incredibly good. I then set my sights on the next runner ahead of me who was about 2oo yards ahead of me. He looked like a marine. He was actually running pretty quick and I wasn't closing the gap that quickly. The Sturgeon was waiting for me at the first mile marker. Wow, did that come quick. Barely over the blaring music in my ears I could hear Darin, yell out to slow down. I looked at my watch and was totally amazed that only 6 minutes had passed. I gave them the thumbs up but felt a little nervous. I thought that I better ease into a better pace, seeing that I didn't think that I should be able to maintain that pace for the entire race. The first two miles were a gentle decline, but the final 1.5 miles had a gradual rise. I ran the next mile in a more comfortable pace. The Marine stayed about 100 feet ahead of me. When I hit mile two, the sturgeon again cheered me on. I looked back and could not see anyone behind me. My family: Jenny, the kids, and my parents were waiting for me at the 2 1/4 mile mark. Of course I had to push it as hard as I could when I passed them. Jenny offered me some water, but I declined. I waved to all of the kids and trudged on. Actually, about at this point I was starting to feel the effects of the heat on me. I longed for some cooler temperatures. I was really starting to feel the pain of my pushing when all of a sudden the Marine stopped running. I passed him and kept going. He didn't let me get too far ahead of him. I think that his pride started kicking in. He passed me back at a brisk pace but eventually stopped again. I again passed him. He once again over took me and rounded the corner to the exchange point just slightly ahead of me. Darin was waiting for me at the exchange for his #10 leg. The only thing that he said to me was, "wow, you ran that fast." I looked down at my watch and saw that I had run my 3.5 miles in 23:50 or about a 6:47 pace. Though it was getting pretty painful at the end because of the heat and exertion. I recovered pretty quickly.

We loaded the sturgeon and headed off to chase after Darin. We cheered him along at the first two mile points. The heat was really working on him, but he still was keeping a good pace. Darin, is about 6' 1" and around 200 lbs, I guess. We were high school and college buddies, and both now work for UDOT. Darin had been running consistently for the last 5 or 6 years and will often run in 5ks. At the next exchange, Darin needed to come in before 8:00 p.m. or else they would make out next runner Michael run with a head lamp. Darin slipped in with 4 minutes to spare. Darin's gut was hurting pretty bad and he was sweating pretty heavily. He always has been a pretty good sweater, but I think that he had done a little extra because of the heat. We passed his family along the route as they cheered him on, as well. Darin averaged an 7:54 minute pace.

Next was Michael Jordan on the first of the Snowbasin legs, #11. Machael is also of a smaller frame, with greying, thinning hair, with glasses. You would easily spot him out as an engineer, but not necessarily a runner. He took off, though, like a shot up the hill. The Run was about 4 miles with a vertical climb of 800 feet for the first 3 miles and then a drop of 300 feet for the last mile. Mike chugged along at a great pace up the mountain. He picked off a few people and I think only a couple of people might have caught him, until he got to the down hill segment. This is where Michael's specialty kicks in. He is an incredible down hill runner. It takes some special ability to run fast down hill without killing your knees, and Michael had that ability. He flew down that last mile. I think his pace for the entire leg was 9:15 minute miles, which is incredible with that type of climb (8%).

Jon was our last leg runner doing #12. Jon is tall and skinny. He is an excellent hiker and has climbed places like Mount Hood, Whitney, and the Grand Tetons. Jon doesn't run terribly fast. This is all by design, because I think that he can. He just paces his self very well. He can probably go on forever at a given pace. Jon was our first person that had to wear all of the safety equipment which consisted of a reflective vest, head lamp, and strobing butt light. It was dusk now and the temperature was dropping. Jon plugged along it looked like to me, effortlessly up the mountain. He took a quick drink of gatorade half way up his 800 vertical foot, 3.1 mile run. At the top of his run was the next major exchange where we would hand off to Heidi who was our #1 leg person. The exchange point was very crowded. They had you park at the ski resort parking lot and then walk a 1/4 mile to the exchange point. There were people everywhere in sleeping bags just plopped down anywhere they could find for a quick few minutes of rest. Jon finished his leg at a 10:15 minute pace, which again was incredible.

NEXT SEGMENT: To Sleep or Not to Sleep.

RAGNAR!!!

The race was run. I live to tell the tale. I had the time of my life running in the RAGNAR series race called the Wasatch Back. I am going to post the tortuous (for both the experience and for the reader who will read the account) as soon as I get a few extra seconds. For now I will just give the gory details.

1. 188 miles, Logan to Park City, Utah
2. 12 member relay team
3. Finished 106 out of 679 teams (27 hours, 31 minutes, 4.4 seconds) top 15%
4. 14,561 vertical feet in 4 mountain passes.
5. I personally got to do 14% (2031 ft) of those vertical feet.
6. Personally ran 16.7 miles in three legs (3.5, 9.6, 3.6 miles)
7. Final 3.6 miles was on Guardsman Pass, nearly 1500 vertical feet. (ouch)
8. 9.6 mile leg was run at 3:00 a.m. (9.6 miles was the longest single leg of all 36 legs)
9. Every Member of our team was over 40.

Ok the rest I will save. I hope this will whet your appetite.

By the way, the picture isn't me.

Lagoon #2: Reservations for Two, Anyone?

The greatest torture device at Lagoon, for more reasons than one, is the wild mouse. I have seriously injured internal organs on that excuse of a ride. I can't seriously believe that anyone gets any enjoyment out of riding it. It's constant direction changing, and 10 billion break checks, leave you more than just a little bashed and bruised by the end of the experience. I think that the only reason why anyone rides it is for the simple reason that it is there, like why some people climb Mount Everest. No pain, no gain, right!? Like a lot of rides at the park, this ride is included in the, 'why do they have it?' category. This category includes three major groupings:

1. Bore you to death
2. Causes serious bodily harm
3. Serves no purpose other than to get you violently sick.

The Wild Mouse is definitely falls under #2. The other reason, though, that it causes torture is the teenage employee. Come to think of it, that is the short coming to all of the rest of the rides.

The line strategy is pretty simple. You wait in one long line until you get pretty close to loading onto the ride. the line then breaks into two as they load two separate cars basically at the same time. Each car holds four riders. We had 6 people in our group. So we worked out all of the complicated math, well in advance, on how we were going to get 6 people into 8 or 4 slots. Once I realized that I needed to carry the two when I was doing the long division on the problem, I came up with the solution that we would have 4 people in the front car and then team on the other two with two other random strangers from the line. We got it worked out and I lined up two of the kids to go with a father and son team that was next to us in line. The stars were all lined up and we were set for everyone to board the 'ride of death' all at the same time.

I forgot one important item though...teenage blondness. The well intended ride operator asked the father and son how many was in their group and they instinctively said, "two". I was ready for this, though, because I had been observing how this young lady had been conducting business. So, I simply interjected, that my two kids had two in their group, as well, and that they were planning on going with the father and son team. Miss Operator looked at me with her best 'you are so stupid' look and voiced to the opposite line, "do we have any two riders?". I again suggested to her, that it might be simplest to take the two available right there at the front of the line. But no. She would have none of that. She again asked the second line if there were any two riders. Everyone just stood there saying nothing because they could see that we had the needed people to fill the car. Finally, a couple of kids, 50 people down the line said that they would take the spots. I was so astounded by the whole situation the only thing that came out of my mouth was, "Weird".

Has anyone else had these types of experiences?

Lagoon #1: The Teenage Employee

Oh, I think that I will start with an employee encounter from our lovely visit to Lagoon. I'm pretty sure that they require an IQ test before hiring anyone; the criteria must be: no one is allowed to score higher on the IQ test than their age.

With this first story I feel a little bad for the employees because of the training given to them by their employer or the lack thereof. It still left me wanting to bang my head against the wall. First, we stood in line for what seemed like half the morning to buy our tickets to get into the park. We actually had to get two types of tickets. We paid a gazillion fifty for those wanting tickets that allowed them to ride on rides, and then we paid nothing (whahoo!!) for those who couldn't afford a gazillion, and therefore, were relegated to only being able to smell the aroma of popcorn/hormones/puke combo-atmosphere, while siting and watching everyone else turn green with motion sickness. Jenny got to get one of those babies. Next we had to move to the next line, which was the line to get your card scanned, hand stamped, and entrance into the park. I think this line is mainly to slow your excitement down for the day. I think that they found that that early adrenalin rush that you have in anticipation of having a fun day must be squelched or you will forget that you still have credit cards in your pocket. You need these to stock up on funnel cakes and corn dogs to survive all the other wait-in-lines that you will be spending 98% of your day doing. They just hate it when some unsuspecting novice is able to slip through the entrance line too fast and rushes off to ride Wicked and perishes in the hot sun before they can even get to height requirement sign.

When we got to the front of this line we all got through, except for Jenny who was bringing up the rear with the stroller loaded with all the gear needed for a week's stay. When Jenny had finished handing out all of the 'real' passes, we realized that we had misplaced the 'free' entrance pass for her. Well, you would think that this was the first time that this poor little sixteen year old employee had ever encountered this situation. She was paralyzed and didn't know what to do, other than hold up the line of which it seemed like she had plenty of experience doing. She finally said, "let me get my supervisor". Eventually, the 'supervisor' came over to help resolve the situation. From my estimation, the reason why this girl was the 'supervisor' was solely based on her being, maybe, six months older than the girl at the gate.

Jenny quickly explained the situation. The 'supervisor' seemed quite skeptical of the situation and I think was on the verge of calling security on us. Jenny flashed her all of the extra 'free' coupons that we had from the stack of extra Stake pamphlets that we had with the attached 'free' coupons (why you would need a 'free' coupon for something that was all ready free kind of escapes me, but I'm getting away from the story). The 'supervisor' didn't buy any of this and said that we needed to stand in the ticket line to get us a 'free' entrance pass. This is where I jumped in and said that we had already stood in that line and purchased our tickets, along with getting our 'free' entrance ticket, but had misplaced it. I know this sounded like stating the obvious because we had all of the tickets that cost us a gazillion fifty, but were lacking the most important one that didn't cost us a dime. Apparently, though, these people were not hired to observe the obvious, but to exert authority which all good, reasonable adults do; and these kids so much want to seem like adults.

Well, I could see where this was going, so I continued to look frantically for the missing ticket while the 'supervisor' continued to lecture Jenny on why it was so important for her to stand in the line to get her 'free' ticket like everyone else had to. Even all of the 'white trash' hoochie women with halter tops where beginning to look at us like we were the scum of the earth trying to get a free ride (all the pun intended) in life. I eventually found the ticket mixed in with all the other worthless trash they spew back at you when you buy the tickets. So at last, the 'free' ticket was found and Jenny got her hand stamped. Interestingly enough, they stamped her hand with the same stamp that they stamped all the paying customers with (go figure).

As we walked dejectedly away, the 'supervisor' continued to glare at us as if to say, "you might have gotten away with this one, this time, but don't expect to get away with free stuff for free next time. How do you expect us to survive financially if we continue to give free stuff away for free?"

Amazingly enough, I was thinking the same thing...at least the part about surviving.

This may be a dumb story, but I have a few more that are dumber.

It's What Fun Is

How can a slogan be so far from the truth? Well, maybe if you are between the ages of 4-17, you may be tricked into thinking that pushing yourself to the brink of puking can bring you more joy than you could ever imagine. Such is the sales pitch of our local amusement park, Lagoon. I suspect that this is the case with most amusements parks across the country: high priced tickets, air stifling thick of teenage hormones, horribly mismanaged attractions, mediocre entertainment, and poor customer service.

I guess that I have to come clean a little bit. I do find some amusement in watching people and making fun of the dumb things I see. In fact, for your benefit, I am going to put a few posts on here with stories of this year's Stake Lagoon Day.

Pride and Prejudice

It is amazing what types of pain we are willing to endure with the right type of motivation. Motives, though, are just as likely to be bad as they are good, even though the results are as rosy as a Jane Austen novel sunset-ed ending.

Take for instance this morning while swimming in the pool. I was cruising along minding my own business when this young athletic type lady gets into a swimming lane next to me. This lady has been a regular at the pool, and so I am familiar with her swimming abilities. It gets a little complicated, but it is often good to know people's swimming abilities when the pool gets crowded and you have to share lanes with multiple people. The last thing that you want to do is have a head on collision with someone at torpedo ramming speed. I've never reached speeds anywhere close to that, but there are a few speedsters out there that, occasionally, I have heard break the sound barrier. Either that or they are 'passing' more than just fellow swimmers.

Anyway, I am really digressing. It's good to know how fast a person swims, if they tend to drift left or right, etc., so if it is crowded you can make the appropriate course corrections at the right times, anticipating whatever dangers the other swimmer might pose to you. Well, this lady that I am referring to is a good consistent swimmer that starts out fast and then settles into a pace that I can usually lap every 8 or 9 laps (believe me there are very few that I can do this to). She hopped into the pool, sped through her first couple of laps and then settled into a drafting pattern right astern to me. I thought that this was odd so I cranked up the speed a little. She continued to match my speed, which really began to bug me. I was thinking to myself, "she can't do this to me, I'm supposed to be kicking her backside."

So, I pushed on hitting each lap faster and faster, still not being able to shake her. The pain began to steadily increase as I pumped my arms and legs faster and faster. All of this additional flailing began to cause a slight wardrobe malfunction. The knot in the trunks of my waistband began to come lose and my shorts started creeping south. I ignored it at first, but eventually the feeling of my shorts riding too low began to be as uncomfortable as the pain I was experiencing in my lungs and arms. I was not about to stop for the 2 seconds that it would take to stop and readjust the main sail and batten down the hatch. She would over take me causing a rift in the space time continuum, dropping me in the all important swimmer's pecking order if I got passed. I was not going to be outdone, besides it was my duty to keep everything right in the universe. So, I forged on, and my shorts kept creeping off.

She kept pace with me for a good 3/4 of a mile, a few times coming close to passing me, but every time I was always able to find something extra to keep me ahead. Eventually, I slowly began to pull away getting a half lap up on her. I knew that I had broken her spirit or was it simply that she became ill when she noticed that my swim trunks were down to my knees? I do know that I had set a new personal best by 5 minutes in 1 1/2 miles.

The question still lingers for me. Was my triumph a result of my pride or due to my prejudice?
Answers maybe only a Victorian era author would know.

[Is it just a coincidence that it seems like the majority of my stories involve having problems keeping my toushie covered?]