Ragnar McDowell 2017: Ragnar After Dark

On last week's blog, our teammates arrived and we started running Ragnar McDowell!

The sun went down on Friday afternoon, and Bryan started his run around his first loop, the green; everything went fine and Amadeo was up next, heading around yellow, and then Luis started the first of his loops, actually a double of red and green. I was up after that, and given my recent lack of serious running, I was being extra cautious to fully stretch before each run, as well as whenever I felt stiff.


Foam rolling on the tarp with socks on my hands.
What?  The ground was rough and dirty.

My spin around yellow went fine, and I was happy to be wearing my buff as those trails were really getting dusty.  As Luis came in from his first double, he handed me the race bib and belt, which was thoroughly inundated with sweat by this time and was getting seriously gross.  When I commented on this, Luis said it came that way to him (possible, but we all add to it), and we both went, "dammit Whitney!" and then laughed.  Chris grabbed a shot of me after my run, cuddling my bag of used running clothes, which was quickly developing its own clouds.


Yum!

Everyone's runs during this time period went well, and as a team, I don't think we ended up with too many bumps and bruises this year, which was nice. I think this might also be one of our first years (for either Ragnar road or Ragnar trail) where no one got lost, which is truly a miracle.  The rotation worked itself out, too, and by this point, we were only about 30 minutes behind schedule, which is also a first for us (generally, at this stage, we're an hour or two behind).  Things were going well!

As runners were handling their legs, this was mainly the scene at camp:


I took a picture from the side while in my chair,
and Amadeo, who happened to be standing up,
gave me the "ooh, give me the phone" signal.
This was his shot.  Well done, non?


Bryan and Christina snoozing


Bryan's patented "sleeping at Ragnar"
solution

I think it was around this time that I noticed Luis trying to curl up and sleep in his camp chair using a blanket (which Mila, his daughter, likes to call "Papi's blanket") as a pillow, relatively unsuccessfully.  I mentioned he should go crash in the tent, and when he expressed worry at who was already in there, I let him know that this didn't really matter at this stage.  As if on cue, Christina emerged from the tent (she'd obviously moved there from Jen's chair a bit earlier), and she let him know that he could hop into her sleeping bag, as it was still nice and toasty warm.  He took her up on it, but not before asking if Amadeo, still sleeping in the tent, was "a cuddler."  Christina assured him this wouldn't be an issue, and Luis took her up on the offer; cut to a few hours later when a very confused Amadeo wandered out of the tent, wondering who that was, since it obviously wasn't Christina.


This is how the taller Olsen
"fit" into the changing tent.
Thank goodness we left the top off.

I have to admit to having some gnarly GI stuff going on during this time as well, making several trips to the port-o-loo's for business.  I'm not really sure what this was left over from (chocolate milk plus beer after leg 1?  Ragnar pasta dinner on Friday night?  Store-bought cookies and brownies?  Life in general?  Mercury in retrograde?), but it wasn't fun, and I made sure I didn't take anything further in, with the exception of water and electrolyte fluid.  I tried to make the most of this by napping in my camp chair, and this seemed to work pretty well, overall.

I asked Luis to wake me up before he left on his final runs, yellow and then red, so I could give him a non-disgusting hug to say goodbye, as he'd be heading back home directly afterward, while I was out on green.  He did, and I knew I had another hour or so to doze before I really needed to get moving.  I woke up before my alarm, chatted with Amadeo for a bit (now finished with his yellow and green runs for Jake), stretched and foam rolled, changed clothes and eventually got moving.  I hung out at the video monitor tent for a few minutes, and then, as our number popped up, headed inside to take the bib from Luis (as well as drop off my warm coat and water bottle with him).  My spin around green (I started around 4am, I think) went totally fine; it was exactly what I needed at this stage in the game; since it was my last leg, I pushed it as hard as I could, coming in just a smidge below my expected pace of 11:00 miles.  I happily gave the bib to Jen for her last lap, and she took off into the dawn.

On the next blog, we put this thing to bed!

Later!

Amy

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Some News...Part One

Some News...Part Two

House Pictures...Finally!