So, we ran {walked, limped, blistered through} Ragnar 2010!
My legs were easy-peasy. Much shorter than last year - which was great because I have not been running nearly as much as I should have been to be ready.
Ryan's legs on the other hand were hard-gerrard. His first leg was a 7 mile downhill on a gravel road run - which he decided to blast through at 6 min pace - what the! I was so mad at him! He said he couldn't go any slower because it hurt to slow himself down. When he hit the pavement for the last mile of his run he immediately realized that he'd underestimated the Ragnar, oh baby. He almost fell over at the finish line of that leg. I was so worried about him - hated it!
He had the worst blisters and every sore muscle possible for his next run, an 8 miler up East Canyon dam at midnight... Worst night ever while he was running! He had to stop a few times and come to the car so we could bandage his poor blisters - they were all over the balls of his feet - huge super owie ones that you feel with every step. He was such a trooper pushing up those never ending hills!
Thankfully we got to sleep in a bed! No noisy hot sticky gym floor this year! Ryan could barely walk when we woke up after 2 hours and 45 minutes of sleep to start running again. Thank goodness his last run was only a 3 miler. I seriously was choking back tears when he started running that last leg. I felt so much love and worry for him at the same time. I just wanted to run for him so bad - but of course his man pride would not let that happen. I ran him drinks every mile just to make sure he was okay - he didn't stop running once. He is so strong! I could never push my body or mind the way he does - one reason he's my hero!
The finish line was a big 'ol party and fun {except the fact that Ry could not walk, and it was a bagillion degrees, and the music was really loud, and the hamburger/grill smoke was making my eyes water, and we were really hungry} - these little smoothies seriously hit the spot! I wanted a McDonald's ice cream cone SO BAD! But they were out of ice cream - bah!
I love him! {especially in his exhaustion - makes me feel like he needs me!}
I gained a new perspective as part of Ragnar. Before this weekend I saw no point in pushing yourself intensely to do hard things. I mean do good things and push a little - but no need to push too hard... Lifes to short to make yourself miserable right? I don't like watching people that I love struggle - I just like people to be happy. It tore me apart watching Ry so exhausted and sore because I made him run the stupid race... However, after the fact we were both so proud of what he had done and we survived and we were better people for it. Pushing yourself is hard but so rewarding AND SO SOOO GOOD FOR YOU! I'm going to work on changing my perspective to focusing on the long-term results of doing hard things. And I am never going to be our children's excuse for giving up on things that seem too hard for them just because I don't want to watch them struggle. Ummmm that will be hard - but good for me and for them. Future children - 'you're welcome' for running Ragnar and watching your father run Ragnar so I could figure this out. When I tell you to stick with it, it's just because I love you and I know it will help you love yourself!
I also decided that rather than hating that our children text - I will embrace it, and text with them. Bah. I really hate texting ya'll. Especially how it consumes the lives of teenagers. It seems to me to be such a time-waster and a lame form of communication... My mind was opened a little bit this weekend however to the possibility of accepting that our children will text... Texting is a mode of communication that teens enjoy to use - it's how they want and like to communicate. So if you want to communicate with them - you should probably learn to text them. It's better to have text conversations with them than no conversations at all, right? I'm definitely not saying texting is the ideal way to have a conversation... But it seems to me to be one of those things that is easier to accept than it would be to fight. Maybe I don't even need to worry about that because there will be a new mode of communication way sweeter than texting by the time we have teenagers. In the meantime, I'm working on accepting texting - just in case.
3 comments:
You're so much better than me. I've already decided to not allow it. Or at least, if my kids do text, it has to be spelled out and grammatically correct. Sigh. Poor Esther and Nathan. That's what having a mother who got her BA in English will do to you.
Wow! What great thoughts and learning from Ragnar!
BAH! You guys are both Rockstars!!! Seriously. Wow. As much as I love running, I don't think I could pull that off. Woah- Ryan I hope your poor feet have recovered from all your poor blisters. I was going to cry just reading about all of them and your crazy long runs in teh middle of the night- ha! And doing hard things really IS good for you. Our family motto once was, "WE DO HARD THINGS!"
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