Let's see if I can finish up the 2015 posts before next year arrives, shall we?
After my birthday in September, a few days later we celebrated Nathan's birthday with his favorite steak. I made him some delicious cupcakes.
There was a super blood moon one night, so Lacey, Sergio and I hit the park and tried to get some shots. I think mine turned out decent, for the little camera that I have.
I hadn't gotten tickets to Brandon Flowers, since I was out of the country, but Ty convinced me that we should try our luck to the sold out show, and we got lucky. I met some girl at the mall, paid her money, she transferred tickets to my phone, and off I went. B Flow - I love you.
Shannon came into town for General Conference weekend - hooray! The sky was happy that day.
We had a Phoenix girls reunion that Friday night at Provisions, which I'd wanted to try. The pork apricot dish below was solid, and this cauliflower dish we ordered was SO good. I'll be back.
I had a haircut in Provo on Saturday morning, so I took Shannon over to Meghan's while I did that, then we explored Utah beauty and the Alpine Loop that afternoon.
We headed back to SLC in a bit of rain, grabbed some dinner and went to see The Martian.
Shannon had gotten tickets for Sunday morning of General Conference, and Celisse was gracious enough to drop us off and pick us up, so no dealing with parking and traffic. It had been a long time since I'd been in person, and it will be a long time until I do it again. It was so noisy and the people in front of me were taking photos with their iPad. And everyone talked through the music. Ugh. Definitely stay home.
Quick fact - Isaac Morley is a relative of mine, so this was fun to see.
We watched the rest of conference from my house. Much better choice.
Snapped this from a parking garage when I went to see Prophet's Prey. So creepy, yet fascinating.
Obsessed with the Balkans, and I picked up some light reading.
A coworker of mine got this box of motivational cards as a gift - she thinks they're hilarious, and now a group of us draw one every day and read it in a bit of a snarky tone. What is this crap?
I started volunteering with a refugee organization here in SLC, and they assigned me as a mentor to a family from Iraq. I really love going to their house a couple times a week, and I am always rewarded generously with food. These little date stuffed things are good! We cooked them together on one of my first days.
Lacey works with the Make a Wish foundation, and they hosted a masquerade ball for one of the Wish Kids. The public was invited to the State Capitol, so I found a mask and we went. Felt like crashing a high school prom, but it was fun to see.
Friday - the big day! Well, I guess there are two, since we'd be running through Saturday as well. We woke up to a sunny view and packed the van.
When you run on a team with 7 pharmacists, you're hooked up for the pain. Julie has a special migraine cocktail (all OTC - no worries).
Suited up. Oh boy. At this point I just kept thinking - what did I get myself into? Being sick for a week in December and having vertigo in January threw off my training and I didn't feel prepared. But we're in it for fun and to finish, so do my best!
We drove out to the exchange to check in and meet up with Van 1, stopping at Subway to grab some sandwiches for later, since we'd start running about lunch time and not be free til dinner. Also, running makes your gut move things along, I think we all got that started in the Subway bathroom. Ugh.
Decorate the van time, since we didn't get to it the night before.
Team photo! Minus Jorge, who was running.
There comes Jorge from Van 1, handing off to Jason in my van. Here we go!
Studying up on my 7-miler. Yikes.
Kim was next.
And the hand off....
Go Kim! We made a toilet paper stop at Walgreens while she was running. Those porta potties aren't well stocked.
Julie got ready with her hydro-quiver.
And go.
I was up next. Eeeek. Especially since I'd never run a full 7 miles before.
At the starting line.
And there I am! You have to at least keep running until your van passes you on the way to the next checkpoint. It was pretty hot though. And not a lot of shade. Everyone I passed was taking some breaks.
Nice neighborhoods and canals on my way.
And the end in sight!
Hooray! Done with the hard one.
Crocodiles were awaiting us at this exchange.
There goes Jesse.
We stopped to cheer him on, using our orange safety flags to cross the street.
And finally, Dan, runner 12. He'd been waiting to run in his very first Ragnar all day long.
People go all out on their decorations, and lots of rum/run jokes.
Finally, Dan was off.
We drove to Exchange 12 and found our other van.
Hooray, we're all done with leg 1! Two more to go.
More Florida sunsets.
We were off to find some real food, and Yelp led us to Shiver's BBQ.
My sandwich was great. And fried okra! My favorite.
This was the first of many key lime pie tastings. No before photo, but we finished this one off quick.
We drove on to the next major exchange at a high school, to try and get some sleep before we had to run again. I'd though about taking a shower, but eh.
Alarm set for early, our best guess on when we'd need to be up again.
And we tried to get some sleep. Julie hit the floor and looked more like she was in a coffin.
So much for sleeping. It really didn't happen. And as we checked our app to see where Van 1 was, we realized they were running way behind schedule. They had some tough legs this round, running through some dark parts of the Everglades, with warnings to stay to one side of the road, because critters were on the other. As we drove past it, it was so dark. I was glad we didn't have that area.
We were scheduled to start running around 1:15, and didn't get to start til about 5:30. Yikes. I managed to get a little sleep from 1 to 4, and Kim went to visit a friend in another van for a couple hours. We had so much time to kill.
We'd all been stoked for our night run, as that was my favorite last year, but it looked like most of us wouldn't get one. We suited up in our gear anyway.
Jason took off and got to Julie in the dark.
She ended up with a sunrise run, so we weren't too mad to be thrown off schedule.
Julie made it through her 11 miles. It was originally supposed to be 8, but they added 3 to her leg due to some last minute construction. She was worried, but did great! I was up next. Four and a half. It was so windy and a bit cold, and I decided to run with my jacket on, but quickly needed to shed it when I started running. I was also still half asleep.
Super pretty morning run over a fishing bridge! I wanted to stop and ask the fishermen what they were catching.
Airing out that sweaty slap bracelet before Jesse had to wear it. It's the nice thing to do.
And finally, Dan waiting to go again, as his night run has now turn into a nearly midday run.
Our next major exchange was at an airport. We had a bit of time to hang out with Van 1. I just wanted to give them a hug after their tough leg 2. We'd also started to worry that we weren't going to finish on time. The exchanges were closing soon after we left them, and we knew we were at the back. We were scheduled to finish around 4:30 but were about 3.5 hours behind schedule at this point. The finish line closed up at 8pm, so....
Dan got in, and we took off again.
Adios, Cortney.
Julie had a recommendation from a friend for a good place to eat. It was back in the direction from which we came, but we figured it'd help traffic clear out if we went the opposite way for a bit. Traffic in the Keys in no joke. We pulled up to Grassy Key Outpost and had ourselves a delicious brunch.
And of course, key lime pie, round 2. This one had a nutmeg cinnamon crust of sorts. It was different, but good. And one of the waiters (more on him later) came to ask us about our van that was plastered with 'Drug Runners' all over it.
Back in the car, we had not that far to drive, but it was going to take us a long time. We passed some old bridges on the way, one used to be a railroad bridge.
As we were driving, it was time for Dan to hit the !Panic! button again on our app. It was an accident and he dropped his phone, but I got the 'Dan needs your help!' message while I was sitting next to him in the van.
We got to our next exchange at another school and saw a mermaid. Florida - keeping it weird. Also, we all agreed that Florida has the WORST drivers of anywhere any of us have ever been.
We started our last leg, and I was feeling pretty good. Not too tired. We had to tell Jesse to slow down during his 1.8 miles, cause we were sitting in traffic and he was passing us!
Julie drove this stretch. She never drives in Ragnar.
While Julie had been running her leg 2, I had texted Ragnar to ask about being so far behind. They said not to worry, and since one runner in Van 1 skipped a leg completely due to injury, we were getting caught up.
I took off for my last two miles and watched some jets fly around overhead.
And done with my part! Thirteen and a half miles total. I feel accomplished.
After Dan started the last leg, we drove towards the finish line, wondering if we were the last team. Didn't see too many runners out there, but there were definitely some behind us. However, some of the super fast teams had much later start times, so we were in their pack and getting smoked.
Roosters awaited us in the parking lot.
We walked to the beach, and I was glad we'd get a sunset ending. We texted Van 1 to meet us there at 630. They'd just sat down to eat at a steak place that was also a strip joint of sorts, and I think some of them were glad for our timing - they had to get up and leave.
Waiting for Dan to get in.
As Dan rounded the corner and came onto the beach, we all ran together into this sunset to cross the finish line.
We did it!
Our medals made a puzzle. We were too lazy to do it, but someone on social media did it for us.
We were beat and needed showers and food. We brought the food to us to make it easier.
We had an early call time the next morning, so we tried to get to bed early, but we all had a major case of the giggles. First, Kim checked in on the app - you can't really put a message in - it just says - Kim checked in - GPS coordinates - everything's okay. She kept hitting that check in accidentally. Then people in Van 1 on the other side of Key West checked in. Our phones all started going off, so each of us checked in, one after another. This went on for awhile, and we just laughed and laughed. I guess you had to be there.
