Northwest Passage Ragnar Relay ULTRA Style

I'll do my best not to bore you to tears with my terrible writing and grammatical errors but no promises. ;)  This ultra relay was ultra fabulous, beautiful, fun, crazy, hard, amazing and basically one of the coolest things I've ever done.  Running as an ultra team basically means double the miles and double the fun of a regular relay.

The epic little ultra adventure all started when I met up with my ultra awesome ultra team. 

Jill, Ashley, Katy, Julia, myself and Lisa is behind the camera. :)

First things first.  We got all decked out in our ultra colorful team outfits.

Lisa, Jill, Katy, Ashley, me, and Julia!

We got ultra close to the Canadian border and it was ultra green!

 And then the ultra wet ultra relay began.

My first leg was ultra hilly with 1005 feet elevation gain and I loved every second of it.  It was beautiful and I ran the 9.5 miles with a 7:23 pace.

After the first legs of the race the rain let up and we decked out our ultra large 15 passenger van.

In between runners we took in the ultra awesome scenery, acted like ultra dorks goofing around and having fun, and I cheered my heart out ultra loud for all of our runners!

And then before I knew it it was already time for round 2.  An ultra long and ultra dark 16.4 miles in the middle of the night.  I paced 7:50's overall and for the most part it was a quite enjoyable run but I must admit there is nothing easy about running for 2+ hours at 2am on zero sleep.  I was very happy to be finished.  I got about 2.5 seconds of sleep in the van and then it was time for the last round of running.

Lisa kicked things off on the last stretch of the ultra relay.

The rotation kept on going and even though we were all ultra tired we never skipped a beat!  We cheered, took in our gorgeous surroundings and just kept on keeping on.

 

My final leg of the race started at 11am and it was ultra hot out!  12.5 miles with a 7:32 average pace.  I felt great was thrilled to have completed my part of this little ultra adventure.

Even though my part was finished at this point there was still running to be done.  Jill and Julia both ultra rocked there legs and after running 200 consecutive miles in 30 hours and 3 minutes we all crossed the finish line together! 

What an ultra freaking amazing experience!  I know that this ultra Ragnar does not necessarily qualify me as an ultra runner but I definitely earned that ultra medal.

I feel so incredibly fortunate that I was able to take part in this event and am very thankful for the ultra amazing friendships I made along the way.  Each of these five ladies inspires me in so many ways with they're strength and they were such amazing examples to me throughout this race.  I will absolutely cherish the memories we made together for a lifetime!