Ragnar Del Sol

This past weekend has been dedicated to Jon running in the Ragnar Del Sol. It is a 12-member relay race from Prescott to Mesa. Each team member runs 3 different legs. The team ran a total of 202 miles! Their start time was 7 am on Friday and they finished at 4:18 pm on Saturday! In total, they ran for 33 hours 18 minutes! I know, it's CRAZY! I was so excited that Jon was keeping me updated when they first took off and left Prescott, but then they were out of cell service for most of Friday (I mean, who has ever heard of Kirkland, AZ?...bonus points if you have). They ran from Prescott down to Wickenburg and then over through Scottsdale and Fountain Hills and then down to Mesa. They ended at Riverview Park on Dobson and the 202. Jon was runner #7. He ran 4.4 miles (Moderate) at Noon on Friday, 8 miles (Very Hard) at Midnight, and then 2.7 miles (Easy) at Noon on Saturday, for a total of 15.1 miles. So on Saturday, I loaded up the kids and my parents and we drove out to Fountain Hills to watch Jon run his last leg. It was so fun! Once we crossed the 202 on Gilbert we started to see runners. After we realized that they were all for the Ragnar, we rolled down the windows and my mom cheered on every runner that was coming down the Beeline until we got to Fountain Hills. We met Jon at a church building for the last major exchange. I helped him stretch and then we anxiously awaited his teammate. I was so proud of him and he did an awesome job conquering a HUGE hill in his last leg. We drove to the next exchange and watched him hand off to the next runner. It was lots of fun watching him run down this hill at full speed and seeing the fountain in Fountain Hills going off. (Can you see the fountain right above the stop light?)We went back to my parents' house for a few hours, but then met the team at Riverview Park to watch them all run across the finish line together; not that Justin was going to wait for them once he could see the end! The team did awesome! Their goal was to finish and finish close to their estimated time. Needless to say, after running 33 hours, they were only about 20 minutes behind their goal time! I think that that is absolutely amazing! But just so you know, they ranked 179th out of 214 teams. Some of those runners out there were totally hardcore! Jon is now sore and sunburned, but he's already talking about next year. I'm so proud of him! Thanks to all of you that ran and helped out with the race. We love all of you and are so blessed by you!