Ragnar McDowell 2015 – Friday Afternoon
Eventually, our start time drew near, and we headed en masse
back to the big white tent to send Matt off in style. On the way, we stopped for a few team
pictures with the official Ragnar FJ:
Go Team Breaking Rag!
And the goofy one...
We happened to notice that Ragnar had already spotted the
picture Ryan posted to Instagram of Jake and Kevin, and it was one of the first
shots hanging in the race tent!
Look, it’s us!
We wished Matt well and sent him off to the big white
transition tent to get ready to kick off our team’s actual running. Here he comes!
And there he goes!
We knew Matt wouldn’t take very long, so Chris, as the next
runner in rotation, was almost ready to go when we hiked back to camp. Since I was third, and I knew Chris wouldn’t
take long either, I also started collecting my gear for my first leg, around
the red loop.
A pic of Matt from the
official Rag photogs,
at the end of the green loop.
Chris met Matt in the transition tent and took off
running. Matt headed back to camp, where
we found out he was sporting some war wounds mainly caused by not clipping his
toenails far enough ahead of Ragnar.
Warning, bloody foot picture below:
Gnarly!
Jake helps to administer treatment
Jen, of course, slept
through the entire thing.
That woman is a world-class napper.
Thankfully, the injury wasn’t that big of a deal, and Matt
would be fine to run his remaining loops (major party foul if you stick your
teammates with additional legs at Ragnar).
Back on the course, Chris was finishing up the yellow loop:
Ta da!
Knowing Chris was getting close, I headed to the transition
area to meet him and start my first leg, around the 6.7 mile red loop. The red loop had the highest elevation
profile of all three loops, and it was the longest, so I was happy to knock it
out first. It actually wasn’t the
hardest by my estimation (see the Friday evening blog for the story of that),
but I still wanted to finish it before night fell.
The elevation profiles
of all three loops
Please note that the elevation numbers on there are not correct,
but the maps are pretty accurate.
Camped at McDowell, we were holding steady at an elevation
just around 1800 feet, and the red loop gained around 200 feet of elevation in
the first few miles. Things settled out
for a little while as we ran along the top of the ridge, scooping down and then
climbing back up through minor changes, and around mile 5, we headed straight
back down into a series of wide-open trail and washes. This part wasn’t my favorite, since it didn’t
have much tree cover and the sun was beating down; thankfully, it was short and
over pretty quickly. After crossing the
road within the park, I hit another small summit which put me staring straight
at the lovely vista of Four Peaks (the mountains, not the brewery, although
either would have been equally appreciated at the time), and then transition
tent was in sight!
Official race pic!
Looking sweaty!
I handed the bib to Ryan in the transition tent and headed
back to our campsite for some R&R (dry clothes, a sandwich, and a
beer). Ryan did well on the green loop…
...and handed off to Bryan, for his trip around yellow:
Jen went out to meet Bryan coming in from yellow and to wish
Whitney well as she headed for her spin around red.
Bryan, coming in hot!
Photo courtesy of Jen,
who also made it into the shot.
who also made it into the shot.
Whitney starting her
run on red.
Photo courtesy of Jen.
In the photo above, you can see Whitney’s hands near her
waist. I can only imagine that she’s
fiddling with our team bib, which gradually became more and more destroyed as
the event went on. In a road Ragnar,
every team member has their own bib, and one slap bracelet serves as the baton,
getting passed from teammate to teammate (it gets quite…odiferous…by the end of
the relay). In trail Ragnar, you pass
your bib and associated race belt from one person to another, so by the end of
the relay, it gets a little beat up.
This year’s race belt, however, got absolutely obliterated. When I first received it from Chris, I
figured that since Matt and Chris have biggest waists than I do, that was the
reason it was about to fall off me. I
just tightened it up and kept running.
By the second and third time I was handed the bib, I had to twist it in
knots in order to clip it together and keep it on my body during my loops.
Apparently, I wasn’t the only person having issues with the
bib. As our team was discussing it
halfway through the evening, Jake, who ran after Whitney, went, “well, I don’t
know who the issue is, but every time I get it from Whitney, it’s
destroyed!” Whitney’s heartfelt burst of
laughter at the accusation made it very apparent that she was a good addition
to the team this year (seriously, she was lovely).
Anywhoo, Miss Speed Demon scorched the red loop, handing the
messed up bib to Jake, who then passed it along to Jen, finishing Breaking
Rag’s first set of legs.
Coming up next!
Ragnar after dark!
Later!
Amy
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