Las Vegas Ragnar Relay

This next weekend I will be doing the Las Vegas Ragnar Relay! I'm SUPER excited, but also scared out of my mind.

Earlier this year I did the Epic Cache-Teton Relay. It was alot of fun. Because of injuries I ended up running 4 legs (about 20 miles). It didn't phase me at all. It was really quite easy for me.

So, when I found out I was doing the Las Vegas Ragnar, I told my team captain to give me a challenge...and she did. I basically volunteered to run the hardest legs on the course.

Take a look here at runner # 7's legs. Yup, those are the legs I'm running. Lord help me!

The past 2 days I've been running City Creek Canyon to get my hills in hoping that it'll help me, but it has been rough. Tomorrow I have to run a total of 11 miles, so I'm going to go in to City Creek tomorrow morning to run all 11 miles.

Hopefully by next weekend I'll be good and ready for Ragnar. I'm also the strongest female runner in my van. So, I wouldn't be surprised, and I honestly don't mind, if I need to get out and help the other runners, even if it's running along side of them and giving them verbal support. I know how much that helps.

I will keep everyone abreast next weekend via Facebook and Twitter how things are going.

Best Time

I had my best time ever running up City Creek Canyon on Friday. It was an out and back 5 mile run. So I ran 2 1/2 miles up, and 2 1/2 miles back. There are parts of the canyon that are pretty steep. The farther up you go, the steeper it gets.

But, I only did 5 miles 'cause that's the amount of time I had available to me. I did it in 50 minutes. So, I stuck to a 10 minute mile the entire time. I'm pretty satisfied with that considering I hadn't been running for a while.

I was so excited to be back out & running. I had gone swimming Friday morning as well. I was feeling pretty good.

Unfortunately, about midnight on Friday, I felt like I hit a brick wall. My cold came back. :( It's more a chest cold than it is a head cold. It really sucks. So, I'm back to taking Mucinex every 12 hours and I hope that it clears up asap.

No matter what, I've got to get up and go swimming tomorrow morning and running tomorrow night. Come hell or high water, I'm going to do my 1/2 marathon next Saturday.

How Does This Happen?

I was supposed to ride up City Creek Canyon last Thursday, but plans changed very fast.

That morning as I was getting ready to pack my bike on to my car & everything, I found out I had a flat tire. I thought no worries 'cause I have all the stuff to repair it, I'll just repair it on my break at work.

Well, we ended up repairing it later in the day right before we were to ride up City Creek, that wasn't the problem.

But, when my tire went flat, for some reason, my chain fell off my bike. And somehow while Sylvia and I were changing my tire, this happened to my chain:




Needless to say...I didn't get to ride up City Creek Canyon that night. :( My dad was able to fix my chain the next day in about 2 minutes though.

City Creek Canyon Ride

This last Wednesday, after work, my boss & I decided to ride our bikes up to the top of City Creek Canyon. From where we parked to the top it was 7.1 miles.

I've ran up part of City Creek Canyon before, and I've been riding hills now for a little while, but I wasn't prepared for how hard this ride was.

First off, I made the mistake of having a Diet Dr. Pepper earlier that morning. I don't drink carbonation during the week, but I didn't have to swim that morning and I had a killer headache. I figured if I drank enough water after having the Diet Dr. Pepper, I'd be fine.

Well, 1 mile in to the ride I could tell that I'd had carbonation that morning. I was starting to huff and puff, and the worst of the ride was yet to come.



My boss is a much better biker than I am and made it up to the top about 5 minutes before I made it up there.

But, I only had to stop once to catch my breath and it was about 1/2 mile from the top. I had just climbed a HUGE hill and was huffing and puffing and looked ahead and there was another huge hill, so I pulled over and stopped for a second; however, I do have to say...I wasn't the slowest biker riding the canyon, I passed two people riding up the canyon.

Of course, coming down the canyon was a piece of cake! It was all downhill. I loved it! My arms and neck got a little tired from hunching over and braking so much, but it was awesome! I loved it!

I can't wait to ride the canyon again. I think I'm going to ride the canyon once a week and then ride my bike home. :) If anybody ever wants to join me on the ride, you're more than welcome.