MUD

Yes that is all this post is about,

MUD

In case you didn't know mud brown is probably one of the ugliest colors on the planet.

There is, however, a reason to acknowledge this awful color.  It's related to a recent trip I just got back from to Zion National Park.

Let me explain...
For the past three years my family and our friends go down to Zion to run a weekend-long relay race. The race is a Ragnar. If you have not heard of it, the concept is pretty interesting and involves camping, running, and lots of fun.

But back to the color of mud.  I know that most people think of Zion, they don't think ugly, brown mud.  Zion is unique, majestic, and one of the most beautiful places on Earth,  and not too far away from Park City.

A picture of Zion National Park
Photo Courtesy of Fodor's Travel

Ragnar is also pretty unique.   If you have never done a relay race,  it's better than most kinds of running.  You have eight people on your team and each person runs three different runs. The first one is a 3-ish mile one, then a 4-ish mile, the last one is about 8 miles; and you run in cycles: person 1, person 2, person 3, and so on until you get to person 8.  Then you start the rotation over until all of the runners have run all of the runs... it takes about 24 hours.  While you are waiting for your turn you sleep, eat, swim, and hang out. It sounds fun, right????

The Ragnar start

Well, we have a bit of a Zion Ragnar curse going.  We have started the race three years in a row and haven't finished it once.

The first year that we did this race it was promising; warm and sunny and everyone was having a great time, until... our very last runner on her very last leg got heat stroke.  We were all waiting at the finish line only to see her being brought in on a cart and off to an ambulance.  She ended up being okay after some fluids, but our Ragnar ended there.  Oh well, we had next year, right?

The runner that got sick and one of our other teammates

Fast forward 364 days... The race started well and it looked like our team would redeem itself, until... it snowed, not jet a little, but 10 inches in fact, in about 3 hours!  Several runners were lost on the trail, everyone was frozen, and search and rescue were kept busy for 20 hours!  Obviously, they canceled the race. Defeated yet again, our team went home wet and cold and without another finish.

A picture of some teammates braving the snow
Photo Courtesy of Joni Hemond

Fast forward 364 days... So finally this year we were all like "OK, we are going to finish this time no matter what!" It was only supposed to rain the day after the race ended, perfect right?  Until...
About three hours into the race my brother and his friend (on the left) had just started running, in their shorts and matching tee-shirts,

They look so happy, little do they know... 

when it began to downpour and the temperature dropped like ten degrees. When they got back to camp the kids were soaked through, freezing, and really, really muddy.  It went downhill from there. We all just waited, miserably, for our turn to run while the rain just kept coming.  I wasn't running until the next day so I ate dinner and went to bed early. It took me hours to fall asleep because the minute I got into the tent it began to downpour again.  The rain was pounding down so hard that it sounded like bullets!

It probably looked a little like this
Photo Courtesy of Berkley Lab

When I woke up I was really surprised to find that it was still dark out and my dad was still in our tent. In fact, everyone was still in camp.  He was supposed to still be running. Did I mention it was still raining? It turned out that the rain did a number on the trails and they were impassible in the dark.  Ragnar decided to force a delay by skipping all legs of the race that were that night and early the next morning. There was too much rain and people weren't safe and kept falling.

If you are going to fall you have to do it in style
(superman style that is)
Photo Creds

You can guess, dear reader, what happened next.  We DID NOT FINISH THE RACE.  Again.
My mom tells me there is a psychological phenomenon called the Sunken Cost Effect.

1. The sunk cost effect is the tendency for humans to continue investing in something that clearly isn't working. Because it is human nature to want to avoid failure, people will often continue spending time, effort or money to try and fix what isn't working instead of cutting their losses and moving on.      Courtesy of What Is

See you in 364 days.