Ragnar : Wasatch Back

It's noon on Sunday and I fall out of bed to answer a knock at the door.  The problem is that my legs don't want to move or bend. It was a painful reminder of the past 48 hours which were some of the funnest but most difficult I've experienced.  At 12:30pm on Friday my team started running the Wasatch Back, a 188.2 mile relay race from Logan to Park City.  I'd been dreading it for the 6 months leading up to it, procrastinating training for 5 1/2 of them but in the days leading up to the race I got more and more exciting.  My team was made up of 12 people, only two of which I knew previously.  We were split into two cars with 6 runners each.  Each runner in the car would run a leg and then the other car would run their legs and this would repeat 3 times.  We ran from 12:30pm to 7:30pm before switching with the second car.   An over priced meal of horrible tasting pasta and a quick attempt at a nap in the Snowbasin parking lot and we were back running.  From our first runner at midnight til I finished my leg at 4:30am I didn't even know where we were, I just ran as fast as I could. By this time the 21 hours of no sleep and previous miles were starting to take their toll.  I started to see things as I was running but as strange as it sounds it was easier to keep running than walk.    Through all of this my night run was incredibly peaceful,  no one was around for most of my run through quiet farmland, just the occasional car.  We ended the morning at 6am with a drive that seemed to take hours to Kamas where we managed to grab 3 hours of sleep.  Our running continued as we took the baton from the second car at noon and ran til 4:30pm.  We arrived The Canyons resort with a few hours to spare before the rest of our team finished up their legs.  I saw several friends who had run the race as well and all were in as high of spirits as I was.  There were people who had run the race all 6 years of its existence, people who run marathons for fun, people like me who aren't runners but are catching the bug, lots of stiff legs and blistered feet, and lots and lots of happy people wearing finishers medals around their necks.  It was a great feeling to see our last runner come running up the hill towards the finish line and our team run the last 100ft with her.  The feeling of knowing that I helped my team finish the race was incredible.  We ran the course in 32 hours which was 14 hours behind the winners but we didn't care.  Just finishing was an enormous accomplishment for us.  Part of what made the race so fun and amazing was how hard I had to push  myself.  Like I said, I'm not a runner.  I find running around the neighborhood boring.  I'd rather ride my bike for exercise.  As I was running my first leg another team's van drove by me with "Your Pain Is Your Gain" painted on the back window which slightly motivated me to keep running because I was definitely feeling pain.  A few minutes later another van drove by with "WHY????" painted on the back which I felt was a much more appropriate saying for how I felt at the moment.  In the end I can walk again, my blisters are healing and I'm starting to look for the next race I can sign up for.