Ragnar Zion: Running through the Desert

Last week I had a second chance to complete Ragnar Trail at Zion Ponderosa Resort outside of Zion National Park in Southern Utah. Ragnar events are relay races of both road and trail varieties. The trail events have a central village where everyone stays and three (green, yellow, red) trail loops of varying degrees of distance and difficulty. Last year, Mike and I met up with a group of friends to take on this race. Mother Nature slapped us down good and hard with torrential rains that began about 10 hours into the event and didn't stop until the trails became dangerous muddy slip-n-slides and the race was called off. This year was different. It was 86 degrees and sunny on Friday and a bit cooler on Saturday. Perfect! I was runner 7 and Mike was 8, which means we were the last two in the lineup. It also meant that we cheered our first runner out of the gate and had about 8 hours to wait until I could go do my first loop.

In Ragnar trail runs, each team has to provide a volunteer. Ours has been my awesome mom for the past two years. Since we had so much time, the three of us drove into the National Park to do a bit of exploring. We hiked up the Canyon Overlook Trail which had phenomenal views of Zion with shear red rock cliffs bracketing a surprisingly green desert valley. Beautiful! On the way back to the car we walked up a dry riverbed for a bit more secluded hike and enjoyed the less dramatic, but equally interesting scenery.

My first loop was green which you would think would mean it is easy. No. That is not at all the case. Green is a hilly, winding 3.4 mile course down into and back out of a canyon. It traverses out to a great view of Checkerboard Mesa then starts long switchbacks down. The switchbacks aren't nice long downhill sections. They're hills, up and down and up and down. Who planned this trail!? The run ends with tight uphill switchbacks that 95% (72% of statistics are made up on the spot, right?) of people ended up hiking. I completed the loop in 44 minutes, which was longer than last year. In 2015, green was the only loop I completed before the race was canceled. Boo.

One of our runners has a bad back, but thought she might be able to complete parts of the race. She jogged her long (red) loop with her fiancé as a pacer, but had to give up her green and yellow loops. Another runner sprained her ankle. Therefore, Mike, Jessica and I each ran an extra 3-4 miles for a total of 18.5ish miles.

The second loop I ran was red. It's about 8 miles. I started my run in the dark and scared Mom half to death by jumping on her for a hug while she was volunteering. I'm sweet like that. The run was exactly what I wanted. It began with amazing stars and moderate inclines for a few miles. Then the sky turned dusky and slowly brightened until I was running into a gorgeous firey orange sunrise. I decided at some point I should run rather than stopping every three minutes to take pictures, so this was not the full grandeur. I completed the loop just as the best colors faded. Mike took the bib for back-to-back green and yellow loops while I went back to the wagon for a tiny bit of sleep. Sleep isn't really a thing in Ragnar since the race goes through the night until all eight runners have each run all three loops. Their motto is "Run. Camp. Sleep? Repeat." Pretty spot on.

 Because the injuries slowed us down, the last six runners ran in pairs to finish in the allotted time. Jessica and I ran green. A mile in, a big fat snake decided to make his move across the trail before someone stepped on him. I panicked, turned around, and ran smack into Jessica who laughed at me, rightfully. Since the snake was taking his dear sweet time in disappearing, Jess led me in a wide arc through the woods. My hero! We had some good adrenaline for the next half mile.

At the transition point, Jess passed off to Heather and I continued on the yellow route (4ish miles). Yellow is the loop that has the best views. So I was very put out at having missed it last year. Heather and I run similar paces and did a great job of pushing each other through the heat while keeping an eye out for snakes. The views were everything I had hoped for. It was a beautiful run with some good up-hills and fun down-hills.

We passed off to Mike and Matt to run the last red loop. Mike was feeling better and killed it, finishing a half hour before he thought he would injured. We ran across the finish line as a team. It was a great experience and my team mates really helped make it so. They're such impressive man and ladies. Who knows, maybe we will be back next year.