For Ragnar Relay Day- My Favorite Exercise/Adventure/Race Photos!!

It's Ragnar Relay day today!!!!!

Woooooo hooooooo!!!!!!!

I have been so excited to do this race, and now it's finally here!!

So to get into the spirit, I thought I'd share with you some of my favorite photos from my "exercise adventures". 

This is the end of the Santa Ana River Trail, where it dead ends into PCH at the beach. It is BEAUTIFUL!! This was one of the rides I've done often, but is STILL a favorite!

This has to be one of my favorite trail runs. We all dubbed this ridge "Leapfrog Ridge" because on this day, we all leapfrogged each other!! I absolutely LOVE that we have fun and enjoy each other, in addition to exercising.

This photo is special. A group of 10 friends all trained together and completed our first Ironman 70.3 (that's a half ironman) together. Everyone finished, and we all celebrated. This trip, this experience, has never ever been duplicated. It was such a special bonding time. Good, good, friends.

This was a trail run up in the local mountains. Again, we always seem to take time to find cool photo opportunities, and to have fun!

This blister, nicknamed the "Hot Tamale Blister" (of course we HAD to photograph it with its namesake) cropped up during my 50 miler. Lovely!

This is me and my good friend Chris (who is my honorary little brother, and married to my very good friend Karen) at the end of "Shadow of the Giants" ultra. We had such a fun run together, it was beautiful, and it was POURING rain and thundering at the end, which was really cool!!

Ohhhhh.... I think this may be my favorite marathon... Big Sur. I ran with my brother in law Mike, it was his first marathon. He rocked it, and the beautiful scenery made it breathtaking.

This was taken last year at our 1st Annual RBS 530 Turkey Trot!! (RBS 530 is the name of our exercise group, named for run, bike, swim at 5:30am) We organized a 5k and 1 mile run on Thanksgiving day, and had QUITE a turnout!! We plan to make it an annual event!! It was fun, and exciting to see all the kiddos get involved!

My first bike century race! Here with my friends Kristin and Karen!

My first 30k, enjoying some post-race soup!

Finishing my first 50k with my friend Kristin! It was a gruelling, hot day, but we (as usual) had fun and chatted up a storm! We also saw imaginary horses and stuffed ice in our sport bras......did I mention it was REALLY hot that day??!! Ha ha. Someone actually go airlifted out due to heat stroke.

The finish of my very first Tri!! It was an olympic distance triathlon, called LA Triathlon. I was so much fun!

Love this shot- from one of our weekly trail runs, you can see the beauty we get to experience every week. And the thing I love about our group, the beauty, the nature, the fun, the wonder of what's going on around us matters. It matters to us. That makes exercise.....well...... more than exercise. And THAT is a beautiful thing.

I'll be back soon to report about Ragnar- the latest in exercise adventure!! We will be running through the night, starting at 8:00am this morning and hopefully finishing sometime around 6:00pm tomorrow, covering 200 miles along the way!

....and eating EVERY SINGLE calorie burned. Every one.