Ragnar Relay 2010

This Post if for September 2010

Ragnar 2008 Waiting in the rain to start!

12 people 200 miles and a lot of running and very little sleep! I swore when I did this race back in 2008 I would never do it again. Two years later what do I decide to do?... but put together a team and be in charge of organizing it all... What?

My main motivation for putting my own team together, was the first year I ran it, I felt that if I had been doing it with a few more friends, it would have been more fun. However the memory of the pain is what I was lacking when I agreed to do this race again. So this was a big undertaking to get twelve people to commit to a race of this magnitude. While I was hoping to do with with a bunch of close friends it turns out  I don't have that many close friends that are that crazy. We had a total of 20 people signed up or agreed to do the race at one time or another and we only had 11 runners on race day. Yes we ran one man short so we had to divide up the extra three legs among some ultra runners on our team, who really came through!

The start line that we barely made it to in time!

The training for it was great it was a good motivator for me to get off my butt again.  I also got the chance to run with my good friend and neighbor who was previously only a gym runner, that was a lot of fun, she is a trooper and an awesome running partner. Some other positives were that my sister and brother-in-law also got to come out and join us for this race and that was great to have them here and to get to spend that time with each of them.

Me with my sister Erin after a very hot run!

Some highlights I should point out that I would hate to forget later down the road.

Phil and Dave being lost amongst the sea of sleeping bodies and not waking up to the numerous phone calls, to which Scott resorted to shouting their names from the top of the hill waking many unhappy runners, in order to find them in time to get to the next check point.

Gotta love the night time gear!

 Treona missing not one but two of her hand offs from Erin!  This was just so humors because she was also the most paranoid about missing her hand offs! The first of which was applauded my many on looking runners when she emerged from the port-a-potty with a look of shock on her face to see us all waiting for her! I love you Treona I hope you forgive me for sharing this with the world! :)

leaving off to a cheery applause after missing her first hand off for a potty break!

Final exchange and she finally made it!

 Sleeping or lack there of was also an experience. Fist attempt was at the high school too noisy and too many lights. Second attempt: also at the high school out side and down a dark alley, nice and dark a little worrisome, but too many phone calls to get any sleep. Third attempt: Sleeping on the bench of the van which was way too short for me! I believe others (the shorter ones) had better luck with this, I on the other hand got a full hour I think! :)

Van One minus Treona (taking the picture)!

Using the port-a-potty at the run down gas station around the corner that had no toilet paper! Paper towels are just not a good substitute!


Tyson intercepting others walkie talkie communications,  proceeding to make airline call references for about 10 minutes before they changed the channel they were using!

Nutella and rice crackers! YUMM!

And then lots and lots and lots of really hard and hot running! :)

Finish line!

We finished at National Harbor and it was beautiful!

 It was fun painful and I am pretty sure I will never do it again!