Ragnar Top Ten

Even though I finally got to sleep in a warm comfy bed last night, I still woke up every couple of hours in a panic thinking I was sleeping through one of my legs of Ragnar. After almost 48 hours, 18.8 miles and less than 6 total hours of sleep, I'm still a little wiped out. I started my Ragnar recap, but I'm too sleepy and a little distracted by the Oscars to organize my thoughts and zillions of pictures into a proper post.

So, ladies and gentlemen, I present my Ragnar Top Ten:

10. Wearing your night time safety gear is required from 5:00PM until 9:00AM. You'll look like a total moron wearing your headlamp while also wearing sunglasses if you have a morning leg after the sun is up. This rule is punishable by death, so you better not break it!

9. All of the legs are classified as "easy", "moderate", "hard" or "very hard". I think these should be changed to "hard", "really damn hard", "could be eaten by a mountain lion" and "crippling". Seriously, I don't think any of the legs for the runners in my van were easy.

8. Choose your van mates wisely. This will make or break your Ragnar experience. All of my van mates were awesome and I swear that's the reason my Ragnar experience was so amazing.

7. Grumpy cat makes everything better.

Nicole, Grumpy Cat, and me. Just hanging out.

6. Ragnar asks that teams keep their van decorating and costumes PG. Only about 3% of the teams actually follow this rule, so you might as well get raunchy, folks.



5. Gather up all of the things you think you will need on this trip. Lay it all out ahead of time in organized piles. Then divide it in half because you won't need half of the shit you think you will. You'll thank me when you're trying to stuff everything into the back of a van.

4. Tagging other vans is a thing. Not only do you decorate and paint all over your own van, other vans will "tag" your van, meaning they'll leave a signature on your van when you aren't looking while parked at a runner exchange. Some even make car magnets to tag other vans.

Now we know for next time...

3. Having a driver that is not one of the runners is awesome. We were lucky to have such an amazing driver. Thank you, Lance, for being such a great navigator and pace calculator! What a rock star!

2. If you are melting down during an extremely difficult leg, it's very helpful to have a team mate scream out the window as they drive past you that,"everyone else looks like shit, too!"

1. Take the time to enjoy every moment of this adventure. It will be over before you know it, so soak it all in!

Nicole, Lara, Bety, Karla, Jenn, Me,
Jenna, Megan, Stacie, Melissa, Tara and Chris

Check out Nicole's blog entry if you'd like to know more about the runners!