Ragnar for me is kind of like getting back together with an old girlfriend - you know it's probably not a good idea, but you talk yourself into it anyway. It ends up being a whirlwind mixture of exhiliarating, sweaty, fun and weeping, hobbling messiness that makes you wonder what the hell you were thinking.
Nonetheless, my wife Andrea's team (a women's team, curiously enough) found themselves down a runner with about 2 weeks to go and decided to open up the testosterone gates. Andrea is a pretty good arm twister, but I didn't need a ton of convincing to take a day off work and spend a long weekend in Arizona in February. Fortunately, I was replacing runner 12 who had the shortlest legs and thus only had just over 10 miles total to run. My goal was to get in a few solid efforts while escaping as physically unscathed as possible.
The nice thing about being van 2 is getting to sleep in a bit on race day. With the sleep deprivation that accompanies a Ragnar Relay, every minute of sleep that you can salvage in the preceding few days is to your advantage. After a quick breakfast in the hotel lobby, we were out & about by 10am, picked up some teammates made a quick grocery store run (which including a chance encounter and epic photo op with the Oreo mascot!) and were at exchange 6 with plenty of time. Our first runner took the hand-off right on schedule at ~12:30pm and with that, van 2 of team 'We Got 99 Problems But a Kill Ain't One' was off!
Leg 12 (2.3 miles, ~7:45 pm) - 16:54
Splits: 7:19-7:30-6:52 pace (0.3)
An unremarkable jaunt through some neighborhood streets to the high school that served as the major exchange point. This one was too short to really be memorable. Got into a reasonably hard effort and focused on staying in control. The field was pretty scattered during this leg and I had nobody within sight for the first few minutes, which was probably to my advantage as it helped me from getting too out of hand early on. Nonetheless, I still managed to pick up 5 'kills'. I didn't intend to really kick it in during the last quarter mile, but had another runner just ahead of me and the competitive side won. I managed to catch her just before the last turn, to which she loudly proclaimed "DAMN IT!", which somehow made it sweeter. Due apologies to my unidentified victim! I still finished feeling strong and comfortably within my target pace for the leg and jogged some laps around the adjacent athletic field to cool down and attempt to keep the legs loose.
Leg 20 (pacing) (2.65 miles, 2:50 am) - 28:23
Splits: 10:57-10:36-10:34 pace (0.65)
Ragnar allows for pacers on all overnight legs, so I took the opportunity to keep Andrea company and safe from the creatures of the night...considering that we heard the distant howl of coyotes for parts of the leg, it wasn't such a far-fetched idea! Apart from the howling, it was a peaceful leg that was a bit removed from the hustle n' bustle. Andrea was hoping for sub 11s on this leg, so we worked on hitting that target for the first mile and then increasing the tempo a bit without straining too much if she was feeling good enough. As shown from the splits, she nailed it pretty well and I was pumped for her.
Leg 24 (3.0 Miles, 5:45 am) - 23:53
Splits: 7:41-8:10-8:08
I was shooting for 8:00 miles on this leg and managed to hit my target, but had to work harder to do it than I would have liked. I didn't really feel so hot for most of it; my legs felt flat and my energy had understandably hit a low point. I had managed to 'sleep' for a couple of hours at the previous major exchange and while getting to lie down is always nice, it wasn't particularly restful as it often goes with Ragnar. So I was probably feeling the aftereffects of that. My stomach also wasn't feeling so hot and I was worried about losing my pukeless streak, but was thankfully able to hold it together. There was some gentle downhill in the first mile, which accounts for the fast split. This was followed by some gentle uphill in the second mile which I did my best to attack while being thankful for the extra oxygen from the lower Arizona altitude as I did so. Handed off feeling pretty trashed and worried about my last leg, but quickly felt better after getting some food and electrolytes in me. Also picked up 10 more kills to add to the collection!
Leg 36 (5.4 miles, 4:30pm) - 45:48
Splits - 7:34-8:05-8:40-8:58-9:11-8:10 pace (0.4)
Last leg of the race! The splits obviously tell a pretty comical tale of starting way too fast and then going into damage control to keep from imploding too badly, then smelling the finish and kicking it up a notch. Why I ran the first mile so fast I have no idea, but I guess it's a good sign that that pace feels 'controlled' for a third hard run in 24 hours off little to no sleep. I purposely dialed it back after that, then took a couple walk breaks in the last 2 miles, more from being sick of running than anything else. Even though I wasn't enjoying myself too much at this point, the scenery of this leg was pretty sweet; with much of it following a bike path along the river. As I made my way along the path, I eventually heard the glorious sound of cheering and an announcer's voice. I looked up and saw the finish area directly across the river from me, with a rather epic looking quarter mile footbridge and a short jaunt along the riverway on the other side to conquer. I picked it up again across the footbridge and picked off a few more people (including some unsuspecting pedestrians). Being within sight of the finish, I was inwardly praying during this time that we'd be taking a direct line and not be forced to do some diabolical mile loop around the nearby buildings or something. Fortunately, the race officials oblidged me and had us turn left, directly into the finish. I held a comfortable pace during this stretch, while impressively managing to kill an entire team....we later debated whether I should count that as 12 kills or not, but I did the honorable thing and only counted it as 1, which still brought me to a respectable 21 kill tally for the leg.
I felt much better on the last leg and fortunately don't seem to have any ill effects physically. Also, the 10 hours of sleep that I received that night were some of the most glorious I've ever had.
Overall, it was a great experience. We had a really fun and low-key van with no drama to speak of, which is really what makes the experience what it is. Everyone seemed pretty pleased with their performances as well. I'm also pumped that the preliminary results list us as 6th in the open women's division. Apparently I didn't even need to wear a tutu as originally planned to fool anybody!
As captain of Team "Lieutenant Dan's Legs" for Wasatch Back in June, it's only a matter of time before I get to embrace this crazyness all over again. Onward we go!
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