Ragnar

Relay

Del Sol

2010

…I DID

IT!

 

…and lived

to tell the tale.

Ok, so here’s a funny.  When I last wrote about getting myself into this crazy Ragnar Race, I had posted my 3 legs.  My mom called and said, (in her cute Chilean accent)  “Are you crazy, Melothy?  Don’t put the maps of when and where you running or some psycho will find you and get you.  You don’t know who reads your blog!” 

So I took my mom’s motherly advice only after noticing they weren’t even my legs.  I posted the wrongs ones.  They were Becky’s.  So phew… no psycho will get me, but they’ll find Becky alright!

So now that Becky and I both made it home safely with no attacker, here they are again, but this time I made sure they were the right ones.

Leg 2:  3.6 miles Hard

Leg 14:  3.4 miles Easy

Leg 26:  4.2 miles Hard

Pickup was Thursday night, 8:00pm.  We drove altogether to stay at Zac’s cousin’s house, 5 minutes away from where the race began.  We were all to meet at the start line the next morning at 6am. 

The thing is:  when you get 6 girls together before a crazy race, you stay up talking ‘til at least midnight.  And that’s exactly what happened.  We drove to Prescott, got our bags inside, settled in, and then laughed and shared all the knowledge we had on what to do when it was go time.  Well, actually everyone else, but Becky and I, shared knowledge, ‘cause I’ll be honest… we needed as much advice as possible to make it through this race alive. 

When Joy told me I needed to eat a banana with some peanut butter, you better believe I scarfed it down.  When she told me I needed to eat a piece of bread before my first leg began, I ate it.  When she told me I needed to warm-up and stretch, etc etc etc… I was on it!

She shared her secret of using a wrist band to wipe your sweat away.  Good, good.  What else you got?  She pulled out her bag of energy goods and shared the differences between Sport Beans and Chomps and Gu. 

Then Catherine went through safety precautions again with us and we looked over each others miles and laughed and sympathized. 

Becky showed off her tough toned legs and then it was my turn, except they weren’t near as tough as Becky’s. 

And then it was lights out.   And it felt like we never slept, ‘cause… no joke, we woke to 4 phone alarms going off at once.  Different ring tones sounding loudly… IT’S TIME TO WAKE UP AND GO GO GO!

My stomach was full of butterflies and I felt like I was about to do some kind of recital in front of hundreds of people, but everyone else seemed ready and excited. 

Has anyone seen Nacho Libre? 

(stretchy pants)

Then Catherine finished her leg and it was my turn.  A little last minute difficulties like…. oh NOOO are you serious?  I need my vest and headlamp ‘til 7:30am?  Hurry, someone run to the van and see if you can find ‘em!

I started off my run while adjusting my headlamp and making sure my vest was zipped.  Oh brother!

Throughout my run, my fingernails were freezing and in some serious pain from the bitter cold.  The rest of me was great.  That’s all I remember. 

Also, I had forgotten my iPod in the backpack I had transferred all my stuff from the night before.  Yeah!  No iPod!  Becky let me use hers and after one song it died.  I ran the whole 4 miles with only the sound of my breathing. 

I felt great though when I was done.  I felt like I could have kept going and going and going.  I was doing 10 min. miles too!  That says a lot, when on the treadmill I was running those killer hills at 13 min miles. 

See… all you runners out there are laughing that I was so proud of my 10 min hill miles.  It’s ok, I can hear you all laughing.

When it was Becky’s turn, I was reassuring her that all will be well, she’s trained, she’s ready, she can do this, no problem, I sang her “You are the champion, Becky!”

It was bitter cold. 

Joy tackled her hard 6.6 miles, easy.  Go Becky!

Brooke, aka Stretchy, I named her that, was next.  Creative name, I know.  She was always stretching.  Wanna know her real nickname though?  gazelle.  Yep, her strides were B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L.  Beautiful.  That girl can run! 

 

Amber trying Gu for the 1st time.  (heavy on the sarcasm) Can you tell how much she just loved it?  Joy said it’s texture was like toothpaste or frosting.  Nope, Amber said it was like gel.

See what I mean?

Hello Van 2! 

Take it away ladies.  We are done…  for now.

There were some pretty creatively decorated vans.

(running impaired)

We were forbying on through to the next main exchange.  No one could sleep, though we tried hard.  The van felt like the doors and tires were going to fall off any second. 

 

We finally fell asleep for all of about a half hour, once there and were all rudely awakened to a text from the “crazies” in Van 2 saying they were going to be done WAY earlier than we had anticipated.  We thought we were fast!  We put in our time when entering, at averaging 11 min. miles, when in fact we were all averaging around 8 min. miles.  We were the only all girl team when we got to the exchange.

And this is what Brooke looked like when we read the text and knew we’d be running in the next two hours.

Here are some shoes we saw some people running in. 

We ate a little something before our 2nd legs.

 

Catherine had found a huge box full of these suckers in her parents garage.  We (everyone, but myself, since my next leg would only be 3 miles flat) all decided to try a bottle to see just how energized we’d get. 

First to try it out:  Catherine.  And the bottle said, “works in minutes.”  They weren’t kidding.  It kicked in and you noticed it right away.  Catherine was talking about how tired she was, how the energy stuff doesn’t seem to be working and while she was talking her speech sped up, she got really giggly, she was bouncing up and down and couldn’t hold still, she was saying, “I’m ready, I’m ready, where is she, I’m ready to go NOW!

 

Catherine left so quickly, I could only get a shot of her ponytail.

We were glad to be one of the first all girl vans to arrive at all the exchanges, ‘cause this is what the lines looked like to the port a potties when we were leaving to the next exchange.  Just imagine what they were smelling like too after a long line of waiting.

We were using some fresh new ones.

No energy stuff for me, but I was feeling alive and ready to go once it was my turn.

“Yeah, slap that baby on!”

I was finishing up in the dark.  My 2nd leg, the easiest one I had, seemed to be my hardest one of them all!  I guess because it was so flat and so dark, and all I could see was cop car lights flashing from a distance at the exchange.  It felt EXACTLY like running down this LONG hallway that never ends and you just can’t get to the end.  Those lights never seemed to be getting any closer no matter how long and hard I ran.

Joy was ready and waiting all ready on her 5 hour energy drink kick, and a swig of RedBull, and some Gu.  She had some energy beans for the way too.  This was her hardest leg.  8.5 miles Hard.  “I’m ready, I’m ready!”

I did this leg in 9 min miles!  Yea for me!

Becky was a goof on the energy stuff. 

Yea Joy! 

Come to find, her leg that was 7.5 miles when she signed up and then had an extra mile added to it, actually wasn’t 8.5, but 9.5!  She was dying when she clocked in and saw the true distance no one ever told her about.  It turned out that most of our legs were actually way longer than the maps were showing. 

Thank you Mr. Ragnar! 

Alright Brooke.  Your turn for this stuff.

Becky came in hyped as can be.  She was ready for a full marathon.  She was still talking fast, still jittery, still crazy. 

“Piece of Cake!”

Alright Amber.  Chug away. 

Little quiet Amber who had been feeling NOT SO WELL throughout this whole race, suddenly burst into AMBULAR.  She was circling the others waiting at the exchange, dancing, bouncing, laughing, not caring who she was bumping into. 

 

After our 2nd legs, we went to Catherine’s mom’s house, who treated us to some delish turkey sandwiches and chocolate dipped strawberries.  Can I just tell you how much more tasty food is when you are starving to death and eating nothing but bananas, bread, and granola crud.  We rushed to shower, got right to bed, around 1am or so.  No one could sleep but me.  They were all sick after the 5 hour energy, barfing. 

I slept an hour and then Catherine came knocking on our door saying we’d be running in another 2 hours or so.  AGAIN, way sooner than we had anticipated.  While we were getting ready, a text came in telling us that an 18 year old kid just died in the race.   

This Ragnar was WAY TOO UNORGANIZED.  It was not safe by any means.  There was no curbside, no room at all for runners, let along running in the dark, in the middle of nowhere, with no pacers allowed.  They were not allowing anyone to cross and hand water out to your runner on some legs, including Joy’s 9.5 mile leg, everyone is running on 1 hour of sleep, we’re exhausted, etc. 

Would I do this again?  The race was way fun, don’t get me wrong, but I would ONLY do it again, IF it was safer.  Maybe more volunteers along your leg so your not the only person running 9 miles, by yourself in the dark, or maybe some cop cars keeping watch.  How ‘bout cones at every leg, not just 2 or three of the legs, and some volunteers handing out water, not the teammates running across crazy busy freeways in the dark. 

I’m not going to lie, but when my 3rd leg was coming up, I was was in tears refusing to go out running in these dangerous circumstances… especially after that poor boy just died. 

There was pure chaos at the main exchange.  They had stopped the race and made everyone who was supposed to run leg 24 (last leg for Van 2), skip it.  Everyone was standing around or waiting in the vans for some news as to what would happen next. 

All the teams were given new start times for their 3rd leg and our time given was 6:15.  How this would affect our times, none of us knew.  We still don’t know.  We’re waiting to find out.

Joy was so sick, she couldn’t run her last leg.  Poor girl went home to recover.  So we had the girl from Van 2 who DID NOT have to run her 2nd leg, run the 1st leg for Catherine, and Catherine took Joy’s leg.

 

I ran my last leg in 9 min miles, but this hardest leg which was SUPPOSED to be 4.6 miles, turned out to really be 5.2 miles! 

 

Tears welled up in my eyeballs when I made it to the next exchange, and I did need to puff my inhaler one or two times when I crossed.  But I made it!  It’s such an overwhelming feeling to run as hard as you can and to make it to that finish point. 

 

We were so sore we could barely walk.  We were walking like 90 year olds who needed walkers. 

Becky:  “Can you lend me a hand Catherine and hold my leg up to stretch?”

Nacho Libre (stretchy pants)

“Ignacio, where is your robe?” 

“It was e-stinky.”

And what better way to finish a race then to pig out on shredded pork burritos with extra meat at Cafe Rios, while Van 2 was finishing up their 3rd legs.  Woot, woot!

We waddled our way back toward the finish line to meet up with the other half of our team. 

We could barely sit down on the curbside while waiting.  Pretty sad and painful.

And THIS is what

VICTORY feels like.

Amber and Joy’s medals

I was very tempted to slide onto this table of medals, like Shamu at Sea World, and then run my little Ragnar legs, taking all of the medals with me. 

We had one more SHALLENGE. 

To straddle the Titan symbol for a picture. 

We almost peed our pants laughing so hard.

You can do it Beck a Leck!

That’s good enough, Lady!

P.S.  I DID NOT TAKE not ONE energy bean, chomp, drink, gu, and still made it!  Woot, woot!  I was too chicken to try the beans and everything else for the first time, not knowing what it would do to my stomach. 

I had been planning though, on downing a 5 hr energy for my 3rd leg, until I saw the effects it had on everyone else.  Phew.  Lucky for me.      

THE UNMENTIONABLES:

- Let’s be honest

- I STILL have this cramp!

- I’m going to vomit in my mouth

- Mr. Ragnar is on crack!

- hellacious

- You haven’t run hard enough… if you don’t feel like throwing up when you’re done.

- WHOSE IN CHARGE HERE?

- I’m not running in the dark!

- high sheeker (hitchhiker)

- Becky almost forgetting her magic rocket shoes

- no iPod, no music

- should I take this 5 hour energy drink????  I feel great!

- this is fun, let’s do it again!

- let’s remember NEVER to do this again!

- urine hair elastic that slapped me in the face

- You don’t have to wear your headlamp, Melody… EVER!

- I don’t really see the point in jogging to warm up cause the 1st 2 miles are gonna suck no matter what.

- I BETTER get a Ragnar bag!

- Do I eat a banana, bread, peanut butter?  What do I need to do?  HELP ME!  What do I do guys.

- my pits stink so bad

- those hills were no joke

- I think I diarreahed my pants!

- Amber on crack weaving through people oblivious

- We’re athletes!

- Ok.. I think the 5 hr energy has kicked in.

- We put the run in fun…. wait a minute!?!

- Becky “rolling down the hill REALLY FAST!”

- THAT was NOT 5 miles, but 9.5! 

-  She’s a gazelle mama

- hmmm… my leg was an extra 2 miles

- those blips on the map are MESSED UP!

- You were Ambular to the Max!

- I’ve decided there’s runners and psycho runners and the psycho runners are ultra runners.

- I need to pee

- THAT was a killer hill!

-  I can’t use this toilet paper, it feels just like tissue paper!  (‘cause it really was, Brooke!!)

- I can’t get out!  Let me out!  Can someone open the door and let me out?

- I’m scared…

- …you’ll do great!

- Oh my gosh!  I can’t walk now!

- Titan van falling apart

- It’s way too hot back here.   …. I’m freezing now.  … Can you turn the heater back on?

- Where are we?

- These mile markers SUCK!

- I can’t walk!

-  I’m going to walk my hills.

- I’m soooo tired.

-  Why haven’t they cancelled this?

- We are ahead of our time by 6 hrs ladies!  We ROCK!

- I’m a REAL runner now!

- I’m a Ragnathelete!