You did what???

That seems to be the general reaction when I tell people about what Billy and I did this past weekend. I think mostly people are confused, then when they get their questions answered they decide it's confirmed. Those Barrons are cuh-razy people. We ran a race called Ragnar this past weekend with some great new friends. Click on the link for more info...but the synopsis is: "You and 11 of your craziest friends pile into two vans and tag team running 200(ish) miles, day and night, relay-style. Only one runner hits the road at a time. Each participant runs three times, with each leg ranging between 3-8 miles and varying in difficulty." So, yeah, there you have it. Some call it crazy, but we called it lots of fun. (Here are a few shots of our decorated "van"...our team name was Tape a Cheetah to Her Back. Inspired by the AT&T commercial.)

Not gonna lie, there were painful moments. My total mileage ended up being a little over 22 miles for the race, Billy was about 16. (I ran two 9 milers, and then a 4 miler.) I don't think I really started to hurt until most of the way through my middle 9 miler. This one was a run with just under 1,000ft of elevation gain, done at about 4:15 am, through the dark woods. There were often other runners around me, or the vans of other teams passing by me, but several times I couldn't see anyone in front of me, or anyone behind me. And then there were those eyes in the woods. I tried to convince myself they weren't really eyes...but then they moved. *EEEEEK!* I knew I shouldn't have looked away from the trail. ;)

My teammates all did an awesome job of knocking out their individual parts of the race, some of them running up unbelievable hills at unbelievable speeds, and often in the middle of the night with nothing but a headlamp to light to way and cows mooing in the fields to keep you company. Some of the legs of the race our van would be able to come alongside and offer support or just yell at our runners for moral support. Runners love to be yelled at, just another little thing that makes them special, kind of like the guy running with his underwear overtop of his shorts, and the guy in the fairy wings. You never know what you might see at a race.

When we finally crossed the finish line, altogether as a team, it was an awesome feeling of accomplishment. We had run 200 miles, not stopping as a team, for about 29 hours worth of running. There was a lot of determination, planning, training, sweating, chocolate milk chugging and laughing that went into making that happen. I'm so glad we were able to be a part of it. We made some great new friends, have a great new story to share, a shiny new medal to hang up, and a little bit of swagger in our step...although that part might just be the sore legs talking. ;)