Bountiful Butterflies: My Ragnar Experience

After six months of training, the Ragnar Relay is now in the past. It was such a great experience and I am so glad I committed to doing it. I want to share about it in detail, partly because I think the details are fun, but also for my own memory's sake. I'm going to do a post for each of the 3 cycles of the Ragnar plus one that is just some reflection. So stay tuned...

The night before the race, Thursday, I was in bed before 9:00 pm because my alarm was set for 2:30 am. Ugh! That is just too early for any imaginable reason! I was out the door at 3:00 am to arrive at Samantha's (our team captain) house by 3:20am. There I met Aaron and Sam's boyfriend Shane who was our driver. From there we picked up Louis and Eva. The final runner for our van, Birgitt (pronounced BEER-get - she's German) met us at the starting line in Huntington Beach. Our team name was Sweatin' with Strangers since it was quite a mish-mash of people; some knew each other, but many did not.

We were running a little late so it was a bit of a mad dash to get checked in, go through the safety training and at the start line in time for our 5:15 gun. The relay starts in waves of 20-30 teams every 15 minutes.

Here are our runners and their distances for the first cycle:

1. Louis - 4.9
2. Sam - 5.0
3. Eva - 5.7
4. Aaron - 4.7
5. Shawn - 2.5
6. Birgitt - 3.8

Shane, Aaron, Louis, Sam, Birgitt

When our runner takes off we all jump in the van and head towards what is called the "exchange" to pass the baton to the next runner. The baton is a "slap bracelet" which is really nice so you don't have to actually hold anything in your hand. It's a little icky though because it's covered in sweat when you receive it. That was a surprise.

Poor Louis didn't know the bracelet was the baton

If there is time, we would make whatever stops might be necessary. Our van was not decorated so during Louis' first run we stopped at Walmart to get shoe polish for the windows. While Eva ran we gassed up the van and started decorating.

One thing I learned through this was that everyone tags everyone else's vans. So what you see written in color was from other teams. There are also are some magnets which I think were pretty cool. And I learned about "kills": when you pass a runner you make a hash-mark on your van. And no, you do not subtract if you get passed by a different runner (lucky for me).

An early morning thrill was discovering that I did not have my running shoes.

I didn't have my shoes!!!

I felt like an idiot. There are no running stores open at 6:30 in the morning. Walmart for some cheapies for the first leg??? The person on my team closest to my shoe size was Birgitt, but she runs right after me. I frantically talked to Jim and my mom to try to figure out what to do. My Super-Mom came to the exchange between Eva (3) and Aaron (4) to bring me my shoes.

Aah, I can breathe again. Who forgets their shoes to a running race? I blame it on 2:30 am. I had everything packed but didn't even think of my shoes. I'm not used to wearing sandals before running and just didn't think enough about that.

When we arrived at the exchange for my first leg I had a nice cheering section. Jim was there with Josh, my Dad and my father-in-law. My friend Liz also came with her one-year-old in tow.

This stretch goes up Nohl Ranch Road which is a very steep hill - up and then down. I had practiced it twice and it is a killer. I was hoping to complete it in 35 minutes, knowing I would be walking quite a bit of the uphill. I clocked in at just under 40 minutes and I'm very confident that the 5 minute difference was waiting at lights to cross the street. There are several long lights in the first third of the mile and Ragnar does not shut down any traffic for this race.

Jim and the boys stopped at several places along the route to cheer me on and were at the exchange when I finished. It was really great. Everything is just so rushed that there wasn't really time to visit.

After my leg we went to Yorba Linda Regional Park to await our last runner and pass the work to our second van. We met the rest of our team there, brief as it was. They did a much better job decorating their van.

What happens next?

FOOD!!

After a nice, leisurely, filling brunch, we made the drive to Lake Elsinore to rest up and await the Van 2 group. I was quite disappointed at the lack of shade, so there really wasn't any place to sleep. I tried a couple spots, but never lucked out.