Running their course — Wasatch relay a race, social event

The sweltering heat gave way to a surprisingly cool mountain night, and runners huddled together in Morgan City Park over plates of spaghetti, exchanging stories of their first legs in the MyoMed Ragnar Relay Wasatch Back.

Some shared their blankets or bug spray, while others offered to make communal their peanut butter and honey sandwiches as part of a race that is unlike any other.

"It's a tribal kind of thing among teams," said Chad Derum, who ran for one of FastRunningblog.com. St. George Running Center's two relay teams last weekend in the race that starts in Logan and ends 181 miles later in Park City. "All of the inside jokes, it's a good time. It's also exhausting."

George Sunderland, 53, who ran the race for the fifth-straight year with Loco Lugnuts, said the event is one he looks forward to all year.

"I just loved it to death," he said. "I always have."

A very experienced runner, but less serious than Derum, Sunderland said he and his teammates have discussed many times why the race is so enjoyable.

"The camaraderie, the bonding," he said. "The incredible scenery, the excitement of running for 24 hours, the logistics of passing off to each other and the other van, running at night and trail running at night, and on top of all of that, you get to run. I just love to run. But I think it's the whole experience, the event ... You share the pain and multiply the joy."

Whether runners wanted to try and win the race or just hoped to finish what is at times a brutal course made more difficult by sleep deprivation, the common experience was one of socializing in a way that isn't often available in one of the most solitary experiences in sports.

The athletes who made up Fastrunningblog.com. St. George Running Store's two teams all had to have run a marathon in two hours and 40 minutes or less, said Sasha Pachev, who organized the teams. Pachev created the blog in 2006 to share his training with others and listen to their input. He now has 549 registered bloggers, and while some are not as active as others, their collective expertise has allowed a number of runners to improve how they feel, as well as how they perform.

"We don't have people who have a whole lot of natural talent, but they're fast because they've done what it takes," Pachev said. "And they're willing to share that knowledge with others on the blog."

Some members of the two teams, made up of one racing team sponsored by St. George Running Center, ran the Ragnar Relay Del Sol in Arizona and won it by 42 minutes. The group fielded two full teams for the Wasatch Back. They finished second and third, losing to BYU's cross country team by just 35 minutes.

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