Garners Gone Wild: Las Vegas Ragnar

Somehow Kelly Collet talked Jake into doing Las Vegas Ragnar and then Jake talked me into doing it. Not sure how that happened, but it did. Either way, team Revenge of the Mullets was ready to take on Vegas.

Ragnar pre-race dinner.

Mullets carbo loading.

Jake and I headed down to Vegas Thursday evening with our new friend Kris. We rolled into Vegas around 1:30am in the morning, slept for 3 hours, and then got up at 4:30am to head out to the start line. Nothing like not sleeping for 3 days straight. Here we go!

New mullets sporting their best outfits.

REVENGE OF THE MULLET Team Members in order of legs.

Justin - Techno Mullet. He had a full on rave going on in the van with a strobe light, glow sticks, & his techno music.

Kris - Ice Tea mullet

Brad - California mullet

Seth - Papa Mullet

Ian - Baby Mullet

Jared - Mexi mullet.

Kelly - All around American mullet

Kristi - Bejeweled mullet

Jake - Ginger mullet

Jim - Army mullet

Sandi - Duchesne mullet (blue eyeshadow)

Becky - Rocker mullet

Here's a little pick with Frank the Tank from the Average Joe's in the middle. We kept seeing him on the course tearing off his shirt & yelling "WE'RE GOING STREAKING!!" He was also dancing naked on top of his van but that's another story.

Here's Jake in his bootie shorts supporting Seth on his run . The van supports the current runner by bringing them water & gels. We also have a water mister that we spray people down with and they LOVE it. We call it mullet juice. We sprayed one lady with the mullet juice & she said, "Does that mean I'm going to give birth to a mullet in 9 months." Yes. Yes it does.

The new addition this race was sidewalk chalk. We left messages for runners on all 195 miles of the trail. Messages included "Nascar Rocks!" "Ginger Mullet Spotting." "Kill the hill." "Beer," with an arrow pointing forward.

We also started tagging other teams vehicles with "I love mullets." This started a fun game of vehicle tagging. Dirty girls tagged us with "Mullets love Dirty Girls." And Dexter tagged us with "Dexter runs with mullets," and pasted a big glob of blood to our window.

Jared finish up his first run.

My ginger mullet did so awesome. I can't believe he did a Ragnar after only running for 2 months. He's a rock star. He completed 11 miles total & did amazing! Even had a smile on his face at the end.

Mullet tunnel of love.

I was the last runner on the team so I didn't get my first run in until we'd been out on the road for over 12 hours. It was nearly dark by then so I got to dawn the evening safety wear.

I love how my head gear splits my hair into. I feel like I'm modeling the safety equipment.

Brad's senior class photo.

Mullet roadcrew taking pictures when they were supposed to be supporting me. Grrrr. Nothing like 6 miles without water.

After my run Van 1 went on to do their runs & Van 2 crashed at this ampitheater for a couple of hours. It was only 7pm but it felt like 4am. We didn't get much sleep as they were announcing runners over the microphone. But it worked.

We got up at 10pm to start our night time run. Jake ran about midnight & I ran at 3:30am. Jaked rocked his run and was done in no time.

My night time run was grueling. I've never done anything so hard in my life. 7.8 miles uphill in the middle of the night out in the desert. The first 6 miles were on a trail full of rocks. It was HORRIBLE! Little rocks and big rocks peppered the trail so thickly that I was constantly tripping & stubbing my toes. There were big mud puddles, huge rivets in the ground, & scary scurring animals. I finally turned my headlamp off & used the moon for light & did better. I felt very lucky to have not twisted my ankle. My only saving grace was Jake & Jim who trekked it out from the van every mile or two to bring me water & wish me luck. It took every ounce of will power I had to not sit down on a rock & start to cry. I was choking back sobs the entire time. Luckily the 6 miles of trail ended & we started on pavement. Only the pavement went straight up in one of the steepest hills I've ever ran & it didn't quite for 2 miles. I was so mad at this point that I zoned out & went into machine mode. I used every ounce of mad that I had and kicked that hills butt. I got 9 kills on that hill (kills = passing people) and averaged a 8 min. 30 mile. It feels good that I finished it strong. I found out later that there were people sobbing at the end of that run. So it wasn't just me. All though the naked guy, in the american flag speedo who passed me in a blur, did just fine.

I finished my run at 5am & then we drove an hour to the next major exchange to sleep. Lucky us. We got to sleep in the middle of the desert on top of sharp gravely rocks. My fear of taranchulas crawling in with me lasted 5 seconds before I passed out from exhaustion.

We got about an hour of sleep & woke up to a pancake breakfast from the Scouts. Yum! There was actually a team there of 12 year old scouts that ran the whole race. It was awesome!

Van 1 finished up there 3rd and final leg around 9am & sent us on our way for the final run.

Jake ran just under 6 miles for his final run. It was a tough run up hill and he rocked it.

I left a bunch of pavement messages in chalk about the Ginger mullet for him to read. After the race we had a couple come up to us and say "Who is the Giner mullet? We want to meet the Ginger mullet." Ha ha. He is famous!

My last run was pretty fun. All the teams were in a great mood cuz the race was coming to a close. People were honking & yelling at me. I even had one van pull over & yell "This is for you!" Then they played "Girls, Girls, Girls."

Being the last runner, I got to run the team in. It was an awesome feeling to accomplish 195 miles between 12 people. I ran 18 of those miles which is the most I've ever done. You'd think with all the running I would get rid of my bamstring, but alas, it remains.