THE RAGNAR RELAY:
a 200 mile relay race between 12 people. Here's the story.
I found out this weekend that running can actually be fun at certain distances. All of that marathon training is for weirdos ;) My short 4 and 5 mile runs in the mountains were wonderful. I will stick to that sort of training from now on.
So, so many people did the relay this year. Like 5,000. It was crazy. You may know others who did it and say "oh it was so much fun," or "we had such a blast." Don't listen to them. They are liars. There are not very many ways that this was fun. I would classify it under "an experience". Our team was separated into 2, 15 passenger vans. It seems like there would be a lot of space for 6 people in a 15 passenger van, but don't let the 15 fool you. We were in that van for about 24 hours.
I was the first runner from our van and I didn't start my first run until about 2:45 p.m. It was a nice run, about 4.8 miles. It felt really long for some reason. I've never really trained in hills, so it was a struggle at first. I did come in faster than we had predicted though. Then everyone else did their runs. We went through some really pretty areas. After everyone was done, it was about 8:30 p.m. We went for some dinner and drove to an elementary school where we could supposedly sleep until our next leg started at 12:55a.m. Well, we didn't get there and arranged until about 10pm. so you can imagine, this pregnant girl was famished. I paid $2 to sleep in the school, since sleeping in the van was not very comfortable. They directed me to the multi purpose room, aka cafeteria. There were about 200 people sleeping on the tile floor and hardly any space to lay down.
I found a tiny spot in between a bunch of people and tried to get some rest. There was banging from the kitchen, people walking by my head, a horrible snoring man and of course sleeping on a tile floor isn't the most comfortable. To put it simply, I didn't sleep a wink. The other van called me and said they were ahead of schedule so we had to get going. My run was supposed to be 30 minutes later. Luckily, I had sweet Bobby on my team who agreed to switch runs with me so I could get some much needed rest. I was going to run her leg that started at 3 a.m.
Love you Bobby! She put on her orange reflective vest and head lamp and set off into the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere. She had a great run and we were all amped up at this point and ready to go. But...as soon as Bobby got to the exchange point, they stopped all the runners. About a mile ahead of us, an 18 year old boy was hit by a car and was critically injured. It was a 2 lane highway and there was nowhere for us to go but back to where we came from. We were instructed to drive to some high school. By the time we found the high school it was 4:30 a.m. By the time they figured out what they would do with us it was 5:30 a.m. We were told to skip our whole second leg, meaning the other van on our team would start their runs. So we went to get some sleep in fountain hills at one of my teammates family's home. We arrived there at about 6:30. There were twin beds to sleep in!!! I have never been more excited to see a bed in my life!! I slept for 2 straight hours!!! It was the best sleep I've ever had. I woke up and felt great. I had a run to get ready for. We all loaded up and headed to the exchange point where I would be taking off from. It was a beautiful day!! I began my run and immediately noticed the huge hills that were all around me. It really was hilly in Fountain Hills. I had 2 massive hills that reminded me more of going up the side of a mountain. I like to call them mini mountains. It sounds better ;) I made it though, and I did it fast! 4 minutes faster than my predicted time. I was done and I was happy. I bought a candy bar the day before to celebrate. It was heaven. My van did their runs and slowly but surely we made it to the finish line at Tempe Marketplace. We crossed the finish line at 2:26 p.m. We got some really cool medals. Then I went home. I fell asleep at 4:30 and didn't really wake up again until 7:30 the next morning. I was still tired but church meetings couldn't be missed, so I was back at it. I will never do Ragnar again. But, I'm glad I got a feel for what it was like. I just don't think not sleeping, driving really slow for 200 miles and running at 3 in the morning is a fun time. But...its over! YAY! Here's some pics.
Fountain HILLS
My first run
Tiffany. The one who talked me into this. Why are we smiling. She is the most in-human, fast runner of all time.
Sprinting to the finish on my last leg!
HILLS
Van #2
The whole team
