race

It's the middle of May, and you're being awakened by snare drums pounding outside your window. Tut . . . Rut tut tut . . . Rut tut tut tut tut.

“Run, eat, maybe sleep, repeat.” That’s how Marti Bowles describes a Ragnar Relay. Bowles’s adventure began when she became a last-minute fill-in on a professor’s team just a week before her first relay. This spur-of-the-moment experience sparked an addiction to the finish-line adrenaline that accompanies two days of running, sleep deprivation, and team bonding of which she now just can’t get enough.

Kristin Hatch, like many others, has always wanted to run a marathon. It has been part of her bucket list since she returned from serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 2008. She wanted the chance to prove to herself that she could aim high, persevere, and see it through—a chance to prove that she wouldn’t give up. So you can imagine the shock when her doctor told her she couldn’t run because of arthritis in her knee. Yet, true to her character, she did it anyway.