Lost in the Lagunas

Well, we weren't exactly lost...but we easily could have been. That is how good my trail-blazing skills are. Get ready for it......this post is....not.....about.the.kids. Wow, eh? It means I actually went out and had a mom's adventure.

So I've been talked into this event called Ragnar. It is pretty big here in Southern California and akin to the Banff to Jasper relay back home (or Jasper to Banff, I've been gone so long I can't remember!) My running buddy is a die-hard Ragnarian (as folks who run Ragnar are affectionally referred to). Every time she'd mention me joining her team I'd kind of growl at her and she'd back off. Then Ragnar came out with the trail version. And she knew it was time to move in for the kill. I agreed.

So the way this thing works is 8 people run 3 different legs in about a 24 hr period. So its kinda like 24 Hrs of Adrenalin which is an awesome event, involving mountain bikes to increase its awesomeness. I was lured in by the idea of trail running with a team until I realized it would mean that I'd have to run 3 times in less than 24 hours. Its a good week if I manage 3 runs in a 7-day week. What was I thinking? Is there an internet acronym for that....WWIT??? So almost 15 miles, spread across 3 runs. At least one of them in the dark.

We went out to pre-run the longest leg of the race: 7.4 miles. The terrain is desert-ish, scrubby, chaparral-ish, hilly, rocky, exposed: essentially not my ideal trail conditions. And full of mountain lions. Okay, so maybe I'm exaggerating but they are out there and these kind of trails just look like mountain lions, being all beige and everything. So now I don't know what to fear more: the sleeplessness, the running, or the carnivores prowling in the dark.

Back to being lost in the Lagunas (where mountain lions also live). Half of our running team (aptly named Team Cougar), headed out last weekend for the last long run of our "training" program. I'm using that term loosely as all we had time to do was up our distance real quick and manage one day of a two-fer run (7 miles in the morning, 4 in the evening).

So this morning in the Lagunas was the pinnacle of our little training cramfest. We planned 12 miles at ~6000 feet elevation. Only problem was,  I was in charge of choosing the trail and the GPS. So about 3.5 hours after leaving the car we made it back with the GPS reading 16.4 miles. Oops. Good thing I'm not Team Captain.

But what an EPIC run. We had beautiful weather and stunning scenery. I'm a little shadowy here but the photo is all about the scenery.