Another Ragnar

After we ran the good ole Wasatch Back in June, most of my team decided to sign up for the Las Vegas relay race in October. Having just spent about $100 to be in pain and run 18 miles and not get any sleep, I opted out of the Las Vegas race. But I still got pulled into it. Turns out they needed a driver, and I was available so I decided--what the heck. I'll go and drive.

For those of you who may not be familiar with the Ragnar Relay series, first of all--they are amazing. They have them all over the US and each one is a total of about 200 miles. You gather up a team of 12, and two vans and then run. Their tag line is very appropriately, "Run. Drive. Sleep? Repeat." And there you have it. So what did I do this weekend? I drove an Expedition full of 4 smelly boys and 2 slightly less smelly girls through the Las Vegas desert. For 29 hours. For future reference, if you have any plans to run one of these--don't pick Vegas. A couple of our runners got lost on the course in the middle of the night and...I can't vouch for any of the other ones but the Wasatch Back at least is way better. So pick a good one.

This is a picture of me at probably 2am, standing on the side of a road in the middle of the desert, wearing an orange reflective vest (that we found out wasn't actually reflective so we had to stick some reflective tape on it...) holding a bright orange flag and a bottle of water. This is also about the time I thought to myself--what on earth am I doing here?

Here's the whole team before we started running. Mike bought a purple bandanna. Then Ben bought one. And then Brad bought one. And then...suddenly, it was team uniform and we all had one.

The finish line was at the Red Rock Casino in Las Vegas. We were supposed to get a couple free rooms there but apparently they ran out and we ended up staying at the Venetian right on the strip! In these huge suites! So that was pretty darn cool. Although, I still had to sleep on the floor because there were 8 of us in there. Oh well, beats the driver's seat of a car (which is where I slept Friday night/Saturday morning). So, I guess the cool part of this race is supposed to be that in ends in Vegas but we got there and I suddenly remembered--I hate Vegas. I feel like it is the perfect embodiment of everything in the world I live my life trying to avoid. It's a dirty, sleazy and uncomfortable place. So what did we do there all night? Well, what any good group of Mormon kids would do:

Watched the Bellagio fountains.

And got our picture taken with the Coca-cola bear. Naturally.

Because what else do people come to Vegas to do?

When we thought we were all going to die of exhaustion (at about 10pm...), we wandered back to the hotel. We left to drive home at 5 the next morning and I was completely astonished at the number of people that were out and about. Way more than I expected. I guess the no clocks and windows in those casinos really does trick people...