Running a marathon without training at 27 and running Ragnar without training at 37…yeah I def could feel the decade difference 😅

Let’s start from the beginning, last year I joined the running club at church and pretty much just followed along in the chat and would see people commenting they were running so people could join and give running tips – I never made it to any of the runs, but I told myself, I would get back to it after I was done nursing. And in the fall, signups for Ragnar were up and I had heard what an amazing bonding time and fun experience it was so I was like okay let’s go. So I signed up with plans to train in the next few months.

Well I should have known that if I didn’t train when I was single, I was definitely not going to find the time to train now working with a baby and a toddler 🤪 I did my best to get outside as soon as I stopped nursing. I did a few run challenges because I’m a box checker and nothing motivates me more than accountability. But I barely got in 2-3 miles and next thing I knew, it was time for Ragnar 😅

Ragnar is a relay race of 12 people from San Diego to Huntington Beach (roughly 200 miles) starting Friday AM and ending sometime Saturday pending how fast you run. I didn’t really know anyone on the team so it was basically a meet and greet for me as we consisted of a father/son running duo (seriously so fast!), mostly BAM (singles at church), a youth and oh yeah me – repping the mamas 🙋🏻‍♀️ I’ll be honest, I definitely felt the more than decade age gap in terms of my aches and pains (but again also my fault for not training), but it was a really fun time bonding in a van cheering each other on and very delirious since we had little sleep (about 5 hours in a span of 48 hours 🤪).

Also to note, our team of 12 was split into two vans – 6 people in each van and then we just ran in order. We each had 3 legs – I had the 3rd shortest total at 14 miles, but wow to go from barely 3 miles to a total of 14…well yeah it was an effort. My first leg was the most fun because adrenaline is my friend and it was a mostly flat area. Second one was hilly and drizzling at midnight so I had a church brother “run” with me to make sure I didn’t die. but that also meant I felt guilty walking the entire thing (which was my plan since there were so many inclines) …so I ended up jogging more than I expected – fear of disappointment, I mean encouragement works wonders 😝 ESP since it was drizzling I felt the need to move quicker to get out before it rains! And my last leg was my shortest leg, but it was all hills and the hottest timeframe for me at 11am so I pretty much felt like death. One of my teammates did it with me and I felt bad since she definitely wanted to jog more of it and the dramatic I am, I told her to leave me and go on! But she wanted to go together so I walked/scooted along and at the end was so thankful to be done. Then we had a good 6 hours to wait for the other half of our team to finish their run and then we all would meet at the finish line. In total our team completed the 200ish miles in 36 hours – started 6am Friday and ended 6pm Saturday ☺️ It was a joy to cross the finish line together and as always, I love getting a medal cuz hello, I run for medals 😉

Now the question I’m asked the most, would I do it again? Honestly, no. I wouldn’t do this again because the waiting between legs is hard. It’s a somewhat awkward 6ish hours where I’m sweaty, but there isn’t really a reason to shower cuz I’m gonna run again. I want to eat, but I also fear throwing up while running so I can’t really eat much. And I’m tired, but I’m not a good napper in a van and with others so I just close my eyes best I can. So the hard part was really the lack of sleep and the waiting between legs. Also the social butterfly in me wished we had more time to interact with the entire team. I think it’s hard to converse when we’re all running on empty and since our vans were going right after each other, we never overlapped. But I’m glad I did this race once – one and done ✅ Ragnar got me back into running and doing something for me again as life does continue even when mom. I think I want to tackle a 5k or 10k next! Overall I’m just proud to get back out there so since I need running accountability….who wants to join my next race? xo