I don't know why it's taking me so long to organize all of my thoughts and pictures about Ragnar. It's such a surreal, awesome experience that I'm sad I didn't take even
more pictures. Anyhoooo, if you missed Part One, you should clickety right
here.
After seeing Nicole off at the start, all of us from the first van raced back to the vehicle to follow after her. Being newbies at this point, we weren't entirely sure how to do the whole "runner aid" thing, but Nicole ran with water, so she was a-ok.
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| Exchange 1...middle of Nowhere, AZ. |
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| Not much fanfare at the runner exchanges. |
We learned really quickly that the course maps are pretty misleading. I present Exhibit A:
That elevation looks like it should be really easy, right? Well, let me just tell you, it was not. There may be a net elevation loss, but there were hills along the entire route. And this was my easiest leg, for sure.
The good thing is that I was rocking it. My first 2 legs were really speedy for me. Soon enough, I was at the exchange and then Jenna off and running. That girl was
fast. Like super fast.
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| Exchange 2 |
Later on, we had a little bit of time to kill at one of the exchanges.
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| Jenna |
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| We became obsessed with Grumpy Cat. |
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| And Grumpy Cat liked our photos.. |
Before we knew it all of our runners had finished their first legs and we met up at the van exchange, where van 2 would would be active and we could relax for a few hours.
The van exchanges were a lot more crowded than the regular runner exchanges and there was definitely a lot more to look at...
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| Yup. |
I don't know how people ran Ragnar before the invention of the smart phone. As soon as we were back in the van, we were Googling lunch options. We were starving. We ended up at Macayo's for Mexican food. Oh man, the margarita's looked so delicious! But Ragnar also has a no drinking during the race policy, so there's that.
Despite how yummy the margis looked, I really wouldn't have wanted to run with alcohol in my system. After snarfing everything in sight, we were excited to be able to use real bathrooms instead of port-a-potties...
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Me, Nicole, Melissa and Megan.
Real running water!!! |
We had a few more hours before we were to exchange vans once again. Exchange 12 was at a high school in Surprise, AZ. We took a little nap on the soccer field...not a comfortable napping location, but a hell of a lot better than the gym floor we slept on later.
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| I think other places in the country have grass that is actually green... |
I think we only managed to crash for a short period of time before we were getting the text alert that night time hours were in effect. I wasn't kidding when I said they take this safety stuff seriously! So we trudged back to the van, put on our safety vests and had a quick snack.
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Yes, that is a Squeeze-it in the picture, courtesy of Nicole.
I didn't even know those still existed! |
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Waiting very impatiently for a text from van 2 to let us
know when their last runner was en route.... |
Pretty soon, it was getting dark, and so we headed over to the runner exchange area so Nicole could start leg 13.
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| Van 1 is ready to rock!! |
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| Let's get this party started! |
I was wondering about sleep and how that works.
ReplyDeleteHow was it running by yourself? That's my biggest concern with a Ragnar.
I didn't find myself alone on the road very often, so it wasn't too big of a deal. I don't know what other Ragnars are like, but everything was clearly marked so it wasn't a problem.
DeleteAs for sleeping, there are usually a couple of van exchanges that offer some sort if area to sleep. The Ragnar site has a race bible for each race and it's really detailed. I found it really helpful.