Ragnar McDowell Mountain – Part the Second!

Be sure to read Part the First!

When last I blogged, Chris, Murph, and I were settling down to camp for the night on Thursday, 11/6, the day before the Ragnar McDowell Mountain Trail Relay began.  As is generally expected when camping, none of us slept amazingly; although having a full moon is great for nighttime trail running, it’s not quite as much of a boon for sleeping in a tent.*  Additionally, several times during the night, we were serenaded by the yips and howls of the local wildlife, mainly in the form of a decent sized pack of coyotes – thankfully, they preferred to stay far away from the stinky humans in our camping area.  As if that wasn’t enough, Pete** was snoring so loudly we could clearly hear him across the at least 25 feet of space between our campsites and through our two respective tents; I guess a dinner of steak and red wine will do that to you.  I initially figured that a sound so loud must have been coming from right beside me, until I turned on my side toward Chris and found him staring back at me, wide-eyed in wonder at the thought of a set of lungs so impressive.

Around 5am, my bladder finally convinced me to leave the warm cocoon of my sleeping bag and wander to the port-o-johns, and I stayed outside for a little bit afterwards, trying to keep from bothering Chris and Murph as they still slumbered.  Eventually, however, the cold wind whipping down the trailhead and into our campsite*** drove me back into the tent and into my cozy spot between the two of them.  Everyone really started stirring around 6:30 or so, and we wandered outside to eat breakfast and see the morning sights.  Ragnar originally didn’t want heat sources in the camping area (I’m having flashbacks to the Top Gear episode where they go caravanning) but eventually agreed to allow camp stoves.  We didn’t bring one ourselves, but we surely will in the future, and big props go out to Team Prickly Perritas for allowing us to boil water on theirs so we could have hot instant coffee and chai to warm up a bit.

Sunrise over the campsite

Early morning GORP

Although the official check-in for the event didn’t start until 8am, cars were being allowed into the park earlier, so teams started arriving and unpacking as soon as the sun came up.  Our good friend and Ragnar teammate from several other events, Erin, came to visit us with her team, the Mexican Moonshiners, and they absolutely had to take a picture of us in our shirts with Murph’s mullet wig (the Mississippi Mud Flap) and Bernard, our official Ragnar mascot.

Rag’Merica!  Freak yeah!

This is Bernard.  Isn’t he amazing?

Murph’s pretty amazing, too.

Here’s Erin’s team after they finished.  Ta da!

After Erin and her team departed, Murph and I headed down to check-in, to claim our Ragnar gear and let the officials know we were here.  I watched (most) of the safety briefing video, which was rather entertaining as those things go, and Murph grabbed our gear.  We headed back to the campsite and Chris, who was keeping an eye on things there for us.

Well, kind of.

Around 9:30 or so, the rest of our team rolled in, and we got busy rearranging the campsite to make everything more accessible for a group of 9 people**** than the 3 we previously had. 

Camp life involves doing your hair…

…fixing the awning (again)…

…resting…

…and napping whenever possible.

We were also able to see our friend Matt, who was running with a team of folks that included his buddy Joshua; Matt and I have a friendly rivalry going on, as our race times tend to be very close to one another, and since we were both runner 3 in the 8 person rotation on our respective teams, we had a chance to compare apples to apples, so to speak. 

Matt says it’s totally beer time.

Also, it’s time to find some Aquaphor…

Our team started at noon***** and Luis was up first. 

The start/finish arch!

Let’s do this!

From left, Jake, Chris, me, Jen, Bryan, Murph, Luis, and Sara

Unlike road Ragnar events, for the trail version, every person on the team ran the same distance; each one of us ran the green (3.1 miles), yellow (4 miles), and red (8.4 miles) trails, and each team started with runner 1 on the green, runner 2 on the yellow, runner 3 on the red, then looping back to start runner 4 on the green, and so on through all 8 runners.  All of the trails started and ended at one common location in Ragnar Village, in a giant white tent that dominated the landscape.  Since I was captaining this squad and assigning runner rotation, I took the liberty of picking a spot that worked well for me; although some folks preferred their longer legs at night, I wanted to have my longest run done and out of the way first, so I could stop worrying about it.  For me, this meant the 8 miler would occur around 1pm; it would be warm, but it would be light, which was my primary concern.

Sara, Luis, and 10 million other Ragnarians getting ready to run

I mean, seriously.  This is madness.

Jake, Keeli, Luis, and Sara in the midst of Ragnar insanity

Since our resident speedsters were ahead of me (Luis as runner 1, doing 3 miles and Chris as runner 2, doing just 4 miles), I went to the start line with my team, fully expecting to be hanging out for only about an hour before I took off on my leg.  At noon, the gun went off and Luis sprinted out to the front of the pack, to quickly disappear into the distance. 

Here he comes!

And there he goes!

We figured he’d destroy the trail in about 24 minutes, so Chris was ready to go and keeping an eye on the digital display that was showing runner times as they passed a mat about ½ mile away from the finish.  24 minutes came and went as did 35 minutes, 45 minutes, and so on.  At 50 minutes, we legitimately started to get worried that Coach had fallen and really hurt himself, succumbed to heatstroke, or been dragged into the wilds of McDowell by a javelina.

OMG!  It wasn’t me!

I don’t eat Venezuelans!  Too spicy!

Chris and Jake went into the transition tent to notify the race organizers of the situation while the rest of us nervously watched the tv monitor, to see if Luis’ time appeared.  Eventually it did, and he came flying into the tent to hand off the race bib and timing chip to Chris.  Apparently, the markings on the green trail could have used a bit more refining, as he ended up turning his 3.1 mile run into a 6 mile hunt to find the proper trail.  Although we initially blamed this on Coach running so fast that he missed the markers (not unheard of, that), we’ve collected stories of at least 4-5 other folks from different teams who got lost on the green loop during the daytime, so it looks like more noticeable markings may have been needed.****** 

Such a stud.

Thankfully, Chris did not have location related issues on his turn on the yellow loop, and he came in on schedule to hand off the bib to me. 

He can fly!

Coming up on the blog – I actually start running!  Imagine that!

Later!

Amy

PS – A huge thank you to Murph, Keeli, and Sara for their pictures!

* At one point in time, I turned to Chris and said, “can somebody please turn that damn streetlight off?!?”  At least it made him laugh.

** Or someone on Pete’s team, but we only met Pete, so he gets the blame.

*** That’s what happens when you have the last campsite next to a trailhead, in addition to spending most of the camping trip re-tying your canopy to stop it from becoming fully airborne. 

**** 8 teammates plus Keeli, Jake’s lovely wife, who was serving as our resident photographer and nurse.

***** Ragnar asks for the typical per mile 10K pace of each teammate, and it calculates start times based on this.  Slower teams start earlier while faster teams start later, so everyone finishes within a similar 5-6 hour window on Saturday.  The start times this year were between 10am-3:30pm on Friday, so we were considered moderately speedy.

****** What was really funny was that no one really had an issue with getting lost at night.  Since the course markers were reflective and sported green LEDs after dark, the trail was actually easier to find on the night legs than during the day.