Yesterday, June 5th I ran in the Rainer to Ruston Relay. The total relay was 50.1 miles. It started at the base of Mt. Rainer Nat'l park and ended on the water front in Tacoma. We put together two 4 position teams (two teams with 8 people each because we ran in pairs so a total of 16 women there are 3 people missing from the photo).
My awesome running partner Rachel and I were postion 2 and we had 3 legs to run... leg 2, leg 6, and leg 10.
Our first leg (leg 2)- This leg was described in the course description as isolated rocky and muddy trail. Rachel and I normally run on a gravel trail and it is often muddy after it rains so I wasn't too concerned. When we arrived at the check in point the guy incharge of the race said that leg 2 was very muddy all the way down and to just take it slow and it's best to run through the puddles. "what"? did he just say "run through the puddles"?? Yep... run through. Still in my mind I was thinking "how bad could it really be"???......... Calf deep mud puddles that covered the entire trail (no way around), running through streams, If there wasn't a puddle there was thick sticky slippery mud, rocks, tree ruts,.... Insane! A picture that will be forever in my mind is when I went to forge through another muddy puddle and I looked down and saw shoes in the puddle! I stopped with one foot in the muck and looked up to see Rachel running with no shoes on! There they both were filling with mud and water! Luckily my shoe only came half off. 6.1 miles of wet muddy squishy shoes and the most crazy conditions. Luckily I brought an extra pair of shoes, pants, and socks to change into our our next leg.
Our second leg (leg 6) - 2.7 miles on a paved trail. Thank heavens!
Our third and last leg (leg 10) - 3.2 miles on a mostly sandy trail. Below is a photo of Rachel and I at the end of our last leg.
Brandon brought the kids down and they were there cheering for me at the end of this leg. It was so nice to see them! We then drove to the finish line to meet the rest of the team and cheer on our runners in the last leg. The two photos below are of me and my support/inspiration. If you look close in the last picture you can see Mt. Rainer (where we started) behind us!!
