Tobler Family Bunch: Ragnar Relay- Team Acme 2012...

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Ragnar Relay- Team Acme 2012...

This is by far my MOST FAVORITE race ever. Every year just seems to get better and better, and more FUN, and more addictive (a good addiction)! Just when you think you have the best team, theme, costume, training, the next year is even better than best.
I had the most wonderful time with the most wonderful people this year, thank you to everyone. What a privilege it is to know and to have good friends, and even better when they share the same passions as you, such as the Gospel of Jesus Christ and Family, but mainly RUNNING!
It has been 6 years of participating in this race, and putting together a team or teams, had for the first few years been a challenge...to find runners crazy enough to join us. I think we finally have a set group of friends that are crazy enough to join us again and again. We just add a couple of new comers here and there, making our team even better each time.
I love the camaraderie, the sportsmanship, the joy, the fun, the humor, the sarcasm, the energy, the friendships, the craziness, the lack of sleep, the lack of food, and whatever comes as part of running RAGNAR. I love the beautiful course we get to run on. I am biased! There cannot be a more gorgeous place to run on, than the Pacific Northwest. I'm sure some of you may disagree with me, but for now, I am living as close to heaven as I can get. I just love it here!
As you can see our theme this year is TEAM ACME. Rob was our team Captain. Between him and Melody, plus a few others, plenty of ideas submerged, and creativity went beyond creative. Thank you to everyone that sewed and glued and put together props to get our team well equipped. We looked the best this year. This theme was super fun. Thanks Rob!
With every race I participate in, I totally thank Heavenly Father for giving me such opportunities to run. He has blessed me with the gift of running and a healthy body, and I am truly grateful for that. I'm even grateful for the times that I have gotten injured and have been able to step back and re-asses or evaluate the reasoning as to why the injury occurred, and think of what I may do differently or better next time to prevent such injury. During recovery time, I sometimes struggle at first with patience, but soon enough after doing my part, I am back on the trails running again.
During this Ragnar Race I injured my Achilles Tendon in the process of running my first leg at the start (due to running 8 miles on un-even pavement, my left foot took all the toll and weight). Unaware of such injury I ran again during the night (2nd leg), and by my lats run I felt a little soreness around my left ankle and heel, but didn't think much of it. My leg consisted of at least 3 miles of hills, and perhaps a mile of flat surface. The hills killed, and my foot hurt badly after about 2 miles. But I was determined to finish it and figured I would just ice it and take some Ibuprofen, and it would all be OK.
Well, after almost two weeks of limping around, and trying to get back into running, Rob's tender love convinced me to go see a Dr. He told me to stay off it until I was able to walk comfortably again, and even then I would have to start running from scratch. I felt like the story of Job in the Bible. The Lord takes and He gives. I knew that temporarily, the gift of running had been taken away. I began to reflect on what I needed to learn, what I needed to do to get this gift back? I had prayed and sought inspiration. Nothing really big came to me. All I felt was that I needed to be wiser with my running. That I couldn't keep doing the same things and expecting better results. I needed to start applying all that I had learned about running over the last year and remember to give myself enough recovery time in between races. I needed to slow it down a bit and be kinder to the body God has given me. I've taken this as a TENDER mercy from Heavenly Father.
It has been a challenge to hold back from running more than I should (I was running marathons). I have lacked the patience at times and paid the price with soreness in my heel and ankle after. One time, when I was running/walking in UT, I was feeling so good, and felt like I could go faster, so I allowed myself to pick up the pace (even tough I shouldn't of), and before I knew it, I tripped and fell on my knees. I have a scar as a permanent reminder to slow down. The amazing thing was that before my run I had asked Heavenly Father to please help me with my desire to run faster and further and to help me be patient. Well, He sure taught me and provided me with the opportunity to learn patience. He allowed me to use my agency, and literally feel the consequence of my choice.
How many times in life has this happened to me? NUMEROUS times, in all aspects, and He is still so very loving and patient with me. I had to laugh at myself after I fell and got up. I totally deserved it. I'm still slowly but surely recovering.
Rob has been dealing with Plantar Fascists himself, injury from April. So, both of us have been taking a minute at a time with our running. We literally add minutes instead of miles to our runs now. It has been over two months for me, and we are barely at 25 min. But it is progress. At least we are not in so much discomfort, and aggravating our injuries. We are being wiser and really trying harder at thinking about our postures, steps, and breathing during our run. I'm definitely doing better and we are well on our way to running So. Cal Ragnar in April 2013 (Team Acme travels), and then the Seattle Rock N' Roll Marathon in June 2013. SO exciting!
Here's a video our Teammate and dear friend Melody put together, thank you Mel. This is awesome! Meep, Meep!

I didn't mean for this Blog post to be this long, but I did want to mention one more thing. During this fun weekend my little Brother, Erick, got engaged! Just a couple of weeks before Ragnar we had a delightful visit. Kelsey (Erick's sweetheart) came to see us for a couple of days with her Brother. I knew that Erick and her had been dating for months, but hadn't heard anything about an engagement. A week later when my brother came to visit to run the race, he announced that he was going to propose to Kelsey and hadn't finalized his details on how he was going to do it. I also found out that Kelsey was planning to drive back with a friend and surprise Erick at the finish line of the race. So, I put the two and two together, and concocted a plan with my sister Frandi.
Erick had told me he had left the ring at home and that it was in his room. So I had my sister find it and send it with Kelsey without her suspecting anything about the ring. So, Kelsey delivered her own engagement ring in a box directly to me. GENIUS!!!
I then surprised Erick with it and he proposed to her the next day up our trail on top of the waterfall. It was the sweetest experience I will never forget. I just loved this whole story! It will be uniquely theirs to tell. I love you Erick and Kelsey. I can't wait to see you get married in Nov. Thanks for coming out here.