Ragnar McDowell 2017: Let's Do This Thing!

On the last blog, Chris and I attempted to sleep on Thursday night at McDowell, which was made difficult by a bunch of idiots singing the "BOMP-BOMP-BOMP" part of "Sweet Caroline," over and over.  Awesome.

Anywhoo, Friday morning finally dawned, and the two of us started stirring around camp, making coffee and the like.  To pay the BNE back for their assistance the night before (did I also mention they gave us an extra lighter for our camp stove, which was the one thing we forgot to bring?  They were seriously awesome), we made them some coffee in our fancy camping French press, and to further the Ragnar love, they offered us some hot breakfast from their camp, in the form of pancakes (made with protein powder and fresh bananas), fruit, bacon, eggs, and sausage.  While we waited for them to put all of this together, we hung out and made contact with the rest of our folks, to assess tentative arrival times.

Snuggled up in our warm clothes

with warm beverages.

The sun rising over Four Peaks.

Pretty place, McDowell.

Jen, Bryan, and Whitney were the first folks in our pack to arrive, and since they got there before the full-blown drop-off madness started, we were able to get them to pull in close to the line of port-o-loos (as things got more crowded, the Ragnar folks station people there to stop this very thing) and unload much closer to our actual site.  Chris hopped in the truck with Bryan to drop his laptop back off in our vehicle, and the two them strolled back to camp.  For my part, I wandered over to help clean up the leftovers from the BNE breakfast bar, which was delicious.

Jen's artsy B&W shot of camp life

Go Team 95!

Before too much longer, Amadeo and Christina arrived, and we all trundled out to the gear drop to help them unload (Christina also took advantage of the buffet next door to grab some food).  Luis made it soon thereafter, and while he didn't have much to unload, we all helped him, too.  Eventually, everyone was hanging out at camp, getting ready to send Whitney off at noon as our first runner.

Amadeo and Chris chat,

while Bryan fills up his water bottle.

Jen, modeling our sweet

"Best Costumes" belt buckles

from Los Coyotes.

During this time period, the BNE volunteered that they brought an extra canopy, so we happily moved ours further to one side and placed theirs right in the middle.  That meant we have full canopy coverage of both campsites, so no one had to do the awkward "shuffle your camp chair around the tarp until the sun goes down" dance.  It was much appreciated.

Moving canopies.

Obviously, I was a big help here.

About 30 minutes before our start time, we wandered toward the start line, all kitted out in our Breaking Rag gear, to grab some pictures and whatnot.

Bryan, Jen, and Whitney

goofing around

Our 2017 Breaking Rag team!

From left:  Chris, me, Jen, Luis, Bryan,

Amandeo, Whitney, and Christina

With a few minutes left to go until noon, Whitney hopped into the starting chute and we moved out to the surrounding area to cheer her on.

Chris, Bryan, and Luis compare notes

Amadeo and Christina are ready to start

their first Ragnar!

There she goes!

Check out Jen's awesome picture!

Due to some specific needs from certain teammates (Luis had to be done with his runs early enough to make it home to coach soccer at 8am on Saturday, Whitney doesn't like running at night, and Jake's legs were being partially covered by both Amadeo and Luis), our normal rotation was a bit different this time.  Whitney did legs 1 and 2 back to back, runners 3-8 would have their normal legs (with Amadeo as runner 8), Luis would do 9 and 10 back to back, runners 3-8 would do their thing again, Luis would do 17 and 18 back to back, then head home, runners 3-7 would finish, and then Whitney would run our very last leg, the red loop for runner 8.  While unorthodox (and not completely sanctioned by Ragnar, I'll admit), it worked out really well for us, and props go to Luis for figuring it out a few days before the event when my brain was well and truly fried.

Anyway, since I was technically the next runner on deck, running my red loop first, I headed back to the campsite with most folks, while Christina and Amadeo went to Ragnar HQ to swap Jake's information out for Amadeo's.  While we could have not bothered, that would mean Amadeo wouldn't have a waiver on file, and if something bad happened, it felt important to take this step - plus it cost all of $20 - a pretty small amount for coverage.  As it turned out, that fee was waived anyway, as Amadeo and Christina had to stand behind a really loud, mad Ragnarian (they are few and far between, but yes, Virginia, they do exist) who was being rather unreasonable with event staff.  By the time they made it to the front of the line, the HQ team was so pleased at Amadeo and Christina's calm demeanor, they were more than happy to change their information out for free.  Hooray for being polite!  Our mothers would be so pleased with us!

During this time, Jake also stopped by to see the group; he did us a huge solid by still dropping off the gear he planned to bring, and it really helped make our experience awesome.  Without the first aid bag, the changing tent, the water cooler, and most importantly, all of the beer, our excursion would not have been the same.  He's a champ, particularly when you consider the sad news that he and Keeli had to make the tough decision to put down Jenna, one of their beloved canine kiddos that same day.  Jake and Keeli are like us in that their furballs are their only kids, so we knew exactly how tough this was for them, and we felt for them to be sure.

Luis and Jen came back to camp after seeing Whitney change from green to yellow, with the news that she was about 3 minutes ahead of schedule.  Speed demon!  I waited just a bit longer and then headed up to the transition tent to take the bib from her.  My spin around red was fine; it started around 1:30pm, so it was toasty for sure, and the expected cloud cover for the weekend hadn't blown in yet.  None of these trails really have any shade (it is the desert, after all), so I was pretty parched for most of the 6.6 miles.  There was a water spot around 2/3 of the way in, and I made good use of it, filling up my handheld bottle and heading back out.  Given all of my recent PT and whatnot, I budgeted myself for 11:00 miles, and I think I hit right on my expected time for my runs.  I was happy to hand the bib to Jen to start her trip around green!

The rest of our daylight laps went well - Jen came back and gave the belt to Christina who gave it to Chris once her lap was done.  

All done with her first Ragnar loop!

Hooray!

While Chris was out on the red loop, he grabbed some shots of camp from the apex of the first climb:

Back at camp, it was time for homemade onion dip, courtesy of Amadeo and Christina:

Noms!

On the next blog, the sun sets and that means it's time for everyone's favorite blog: Ragnar After Dark!

Later!

Amy