Rag-nasty!!

We made it!

After 29 hours and 204 miles of racing through the Arizona desert, team Haulin' Asphalt is no worse for the wear, and it feels SO good.

Not that we didn't have our challenges...

The night before the run, Aimee, my favorite Texan, got the flu and had to give up her spot to our AMAZING alternate runner, Brenda. If we learned one thing, it was to ALWAYS have a backup plan.
So, Friday morning, van 1 (Brittny, Melissa, Brook, Kelly, Brenda and Heidi) took off to be in Prescott for our 9:30 start time.
We slept in:)

We (van 2) left at 10AM for Kirkland where we picked up our first legs. That's when we got the news that Heidi had tweaked her knee just a couple of miles into her first run and had to pull out. Again, thank goodness for Brenda who jumped out and finished Heidi's leg.

So, now we're down 2 of our teammates:(

Fortunately, the rest of the day was amazing. Our van ran Sandi,

then, Sara,

then, Summer,

then, me,

then, Lisa,

then, Cheryl.

 

And at about 8PM, we retired to the Wickenburg Super 8 for some Subway, showers and sleep...until midnight. And then we were back on the road to relieve the other van.
Sandi began her long 8 mile run. She was a machine, but sheer will can't get you all the way through a race if your body doesn't cooperate and at mile 7, her knee, too, had other plans. But she pushed through to the end! However, she had to be done.

That's, 3 teammates gone.

That's when we got the news that at the very next exchange, an 18 year old runner had been struck by a car and they were closing down the highway. Race officials ordered us to go straight to exchange 24 where we all were assigned new start times to finish the race. Ours was 6:10AM. But we had skipped Sara, Summer and my second legs of the race. And, then...we found out that Brittny had gotten food poisoning and was DEFINATELY not able to run her last leg.

Are you still counting? That's 4.

So, we went back to the drawing board.
After switching around some runs and fueling up with Denny's, we were pumped and ready to finish off strong. And we did!

And after all of that, some might ask why we would ever do it again. To that I say...
"Where do I sign up?"