Dan and I both ran the
Ragnar this year. I had so much fun last year, I really really really wanted to do it again. I was disappointed that the rest of my cousins didn't come back and do it again, but we still had a fun team. And a much faster one!
Dan and I had an incredibly long and complicated journey to get there.We left Portland around 11:30 on Thursday July 17. Traffic up to Seattle was horrid. We dropped the dog off at his doggie sitter at 3:30. (Levi will stay there will we fly back to Seattle and we'll pick him up just before we fly over to Japan. Trust me, this was the simplest solution!)
We then drove to Everett base and parked the van. We took a taxi to the ferry station and caught the 6:30 ferry over to Whidbey Island. (Yes, a taxi was better than waiting eternity to drive on the ferry.) Cousin Heidi picked us up on the other side and we headed to her house. She thoughtfully kicked her kids out of their room and Dan and I stayed the night there. We were up at 6am to drive over to meet up with the rest of the team and to drive to the Canadian Border Our race started at the very last freeway exit before Canada. Our start time was 9:30. We arrived in time, checked in, got our goody bag, and did our safety brief and got all ready. We sent our first runner off and the race had begun!!
It was crazy and fun! It was kind of nice to do it with Dan too. He enjoyed this one much more than his first (Ultra!) Ragnar experience. He was runner #5 and I was #6. I did the same legs I did last year, which I liked. Mine were 6.5 miles, 5.5 miles and 2.5 miles. I did not feel like I had put in the training on the long miles as much as I should have, but my stupid foot still hurts, so I wasn't quite as prepared as I wanted to be. I started my first run a little after 2pm and it was a hot, sunny afternoon. I did 6.54 miles in 1:05:13, which I was quite pleased with, especially since I spent 5 minutes of that waiting at an incredibly long light.
When I finished, our van was done, while Van 2 ran their part. They were a lot faster and we only had about 4 hours of down time. We spent that going out to lunch (Red Robin) and then relaxing the gym at the next main exchange. I did not bother to shower, but lay down. I couldn't sleep, but it was nice to rest. Dan took the shower before resting.
We kicked off the second leg about 7:30pm. I was smarter this year. I had a headlight that clipped onto my hat. Last year the headlamp was incredibly annoying and uncomfortable after a couple miles. The clip on with the hat was perfect and I didn't feel it at all. It may not have been as bright, but it worked nicely. My night run started at 10:30, I think. It went pretty well. It was chilly. It had been misting and drizzling slightly, but not enough to make it miserable to run in. The wet weather stopped by my run and I warmed up quickly. I was glad I packed my mp3 with audiobook, as it got quite boring for me and I was losing motivation. With my audiobook, I found a nice rhythm and was satisfied with my time of 58:20:30. We headed back to Heidi's house after that for some shut-eye. I debated the shower, but decided spending 15 minutes getting clean and then sleeping on wet hair wasn't worth it. So I just went to bed, all gross and nasty, yes, I did. I only had 2 or so hours. The depressing thing is that Van 2 was running slower than anticipated and we could have had another hour of sleep. Ah, well. We'd gotten up to be ready for a 4:45am departure, but didn't actually need to be there till a bit later.
We drove back to the big exchange and started our third leg around 6:30 in the morning. My right heel was really sore, and I was a little concerned about it. It had been pretty painful for most of my second run, but my third leg was only 2.5 miles, so I figured, even if it hurt, I'd get it done. We had a good time. Mandy cranked up the music, we did some cheering, we busted out the sidewalk chalk for motivational messages for our runners, and enjoyed the near-doneness.
I started my last leg around 9:30 and yep, my heel really hurt. I hobbled along a bit and finally decided it wasn't going to get better, so suck it up and go faster. I surprised myself my running my fastest time. My legs just got into a rhythm and I let them go. That and the guy in front of me was motivating me to go fast enough to pass him. And I did. Then I had to stay ahead of him. And I did!
Ragnar has an awesome pace projector based on the time you give as your average pace. They had been pretty close to what we actually did in our van, since we'd been pretty honest and I know I gave myself an additional 10 seconds per mile on my pace. Ragnar adds in factors like hills and stuff and comes up with how long they think it will take you to run your leg. They guestimated 30 minutes for my final 2.5 miles. My van went with that number, which I also expected. However, I was feeling so great, I knocked it out in 23 minutes and got to the exchange to see.... no one from either van. Van 2 was napping and didn't get there till exactly when they thought I would be there, and my van never passed me and stopped a bit before the exchange, to cheer me on- but I'd already finished. So I wandered around for 7 minutes waiting for someone to give my slap-bracelet to! Oops.
And then I was done! We made the trek back to Heidi's house and I did get an awesome shower. I had time to rearrange my bags and sort through my gear before we left. Heidi stopped by the awesome ice cream place and I got my coveted cone of deliciousness and I was happy. Very happy. Unfortunately, Van 2 was erratic in their projections of when they would finish the race and they raced across the finish line 15 minutes before we got there. Oops! We went ahead and did a re-enactment and then got our official photos and medals and pizza. We officially finished around 2:45pm on Saturday.
So, stats....
There were 504 teams in the race.
We were 155 out of those 504 teams.
We were in the "mixed open" category, meaning we had both men and women on the team.
There were 333 mixed teams and we were 96th out of that.
The fastest team overall ran 196 miles in 21:53:02
Our team ran it in 29:14:18, nearly 7 1/2 hours longer.
(Slowest team was 38:38:52, but they finished so they still rock!)
Anyway, after the race and grand finale, Dan and I had no desire to hang around. We had to get back Portland! Heidi drove us back to the ferry, where we bypassed the 2 hour wait for cars, and we walked on. We got a cab back to our van and hit the road back to Portland. Thank goodness we had much better traffic and we made it to Adam and Savannah's before 10pm. Hooray! The kids had a marvelous time in our absence. As Callie told me with a huge grin, "Uncle Adam is AWESOME!" And "They are awesome parents."
And then I fell into bed and went to sleep. The end.
Oh, except for pictures.
This was the van. We need to find some more Narwhal -themed stuff!
Lani, our first runner, looking cool and relaxed.
First hand-off at the first exchange. Lani is handing off to Mandy.
One of my favorite teams was "Buns on the Run" and they each wore a set of buns on their runs. It was awesome and hilarious!
The "Juragnar Park" team had these inflatable dinos they would run with. Here, the rest of the team is making a dino bridge for their runner to run under. It was cute.
We were also highly motivating! Yeah, we had a Narwhal mask and we used it!
(Okay, if you check amazon, it is a "narwhalicorn" mask and it was awesome!
I thought this was the greatest picture! This is Mandy, running her first leg.
Narwhal selfie of me and Dan!
I took this narwhal selfie on the beach, cuz we were there!
Scot was runner #3. Mandy is his mom. And he is 15. Oh, and he totally rocked his runs!
Cousin Heidi, heading down the homestretch of her first leg!
Dan was runner #5, and he was excited. Mostly!
Mandy, sporting the hot night gear.
This was awesome. For his third leg, which was comparatively short, Scot wore this awesome wig. His mom was the runner just before him. She nearly ran right by him, because she didn't recognize him with the hair!
Ragnarwhals on the loose!
I love that Heidi is smiling in every photo. She is awesome.
Most motivating picture of the race. Heidi's third leg is a miserable 8 miles of brutal hills, but it goes right by her house. Her kids came out to cheer her on and run to the finish with her. Seriously, how do you NOT tear up at this?!
Scot, representing.
The mask was a lot of fun and there were a lot of people who commented on it and our shirt.
It was great!
And here Dan is, handing the slap-bracelet off to me, for my final leg. His distances were 5, 8 and 4.5 miles and he was happy with his times.
In case you missed it before, I ran 7 minutes faster than the projected 30 minutes and beat my team to the exchange. So no pictures of my triumphal finish. (sad sad face.)
Our group photo at the end. Yeah, we look good!
This is how I feel abut the race and getting my medal!
And now, I will show you some pix of some of the fun stuff the other teams had.
The Dino-weilding group made this awesome sign for their team.
We saw this van in most of the same exchanges. The Mortal Wombats.... hee hee hee!
This was a fun team "For Whom the Cowbell Tolls". They clanged bells and that was pretty fun.
What a great name. I love it!
This was the team called "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy" and while their name may have been questionable in the tasteful department, they were a super fun group. They sang and danced and cheered. And I really want a giant pointer like the driver has. An inflatable hobby horse is nice, but a giant pointer.... way cool.
