The Rapturous Ogden Marathon

(Friends, I have a couple of movies you need to play while reading this post--it will make it more exciting.)

Cue YouTube Video #1: R.E.M's "It's the end of the world as we know it."

A few months ago, I was invited by my sister*, we'll call her the Redhead, to run a relay leg in the Ogden Marathon.  Sure, that would be grand, I said. I also invited my cross-country-running sister-in-law, Thing 2, to run one of the other legs and she thought it would be peachy.

(*My sister is married to the Redhead's husband's brother.  But we knew each other before everyone married each other, so we just call each other sisters!)

Little did I know that the Ogden Marathon would coincide (according to one man) with the end of the world--May 21, 2011.

Dun-dun duuuuuuunnnn!

Because I wasn't taken up in the rapture, I assumed I wasn't worthy and would suffer the horror that happens with the whole end of the world thing.

Well, let me tell you--waking up at 3:30 in the morning so we could make it in time for my bus was pretty horrible.

Anyway...cue YouTube Video #2: Chariot of Fire**

I was the second leg of the race and the tricky part of this relay was that I hadn't met half of our team, namely the girl running the first leg.  I was so worried I would miss the baton hand off with the Leg #1 girl, so I stood alert and ready to sprint off like a gazelle (ha!), watching the hoards of people go by, hoping to spot the hot pink sequined fabric we all agreed to wear somewhere on our persons so we could recognize each other.

I waited and waited.  I saw a guy running in a bee costume.  I saw another guy that looked just like Forest Gump.  But still no hot pink fabric.  Crap!  I must of missed her. I saw some of my running club friends. I saw a classmate from college run by.  No Leg #1 girl though.

Where, oh where, are you Leg #1 girl?!?

Then I see from afar, a baton that has been tied with hot pink sequined fabric!  Yay!  Leg #1 Girl has arrived! As she handed me the baton, she told me that the race started off about 10 minutes late.

I bound off like a gazelle, of course (ha!), and am happily running along this beautiful course in Ogden Canyon.

Now people, I can't explain how awesome this run is.  Let me put it this way, at one point in time we ran along this curve and all these horses started to run in the pasture next to us--wow!

Now my next task was to find Thing 2 to hand off the baton at Mile 13.1.  When I approached the gate, I scanned the bazillion people that were standing around in the area. Yes, there was a bazillion people.

What if I couldn't find her?  What if she gave up on her slow-poke sister-in-law and went home?  Or even worse, she was in a port-a-potty?

But among the bazillion people standing around the gate area, I spotted the very tall Thing 2's head poking above the crowd.  Wahoo!  I wasn't looking forward to knocking on port-a-potties to find her.

And here's the hand off!

You can tell from the goofy smile on my face that I am relieved that I found her.

Thing 2 dodging the bazillion people in the area.

Our lovely baton!

Thankfully, Lee was there to take pictures of our momentous hand off. Lee wanted to cheer for us and in order to do so properly, he had to have a cheering mohawk.

A little peek of Lee's new 'do.

The folks with the Ogden Marathon did a great job and we couldn't have asked for lovelier weather. I'm going to be honest with you, I have to echo R.E.M.'s sentiment--if it really was the end of the world, I felt fine!

On Historic Main Street in Ogden after the race

**Warning: We do not endorse this man's smoking habit. In fact, we think he's not too bright for smoking, though we have a high opinion of his synthesizer skills.**