Ragnar McDowell 2015 – Friday Morning

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Want to read more of the story?  Start here:  Thursday

When last I blogged, Chris, Jake, and I retired for the night in Matt’s tent (a great tent – nice and roomy but super easy to assemble).  In 2014, Ragnar cut off folks coming into the site around 7pm, which left the evening nice and quiet after everyone fell asleep around 10pm.  This year, Ragnar let everyone keep coming in until 10, which lead to teams still setting up camp at midnight.  Nothing soothes you to sleep quite like the “ting” of a hammer trying to bully a metal stake into the hard Arizona ground.  Eventually, we all got some shut-eye, although some of the jerks in camp were still yammering at 2am or so (in an attempt to block out the sound, I had earplugs plus my knit cap plus my sleeping bag pulled over my head.  It helped, but it didn’t completely fix the issue).

Needless to say, the next morning arrived and we were a bit worse for wear.


Chris says “good morning!”

We greeted the sunrise and started the essential process of assembling the camp stove and heating water for coffee and tea.


So.early.


Time for warm fluids!

As the rest of our teammates got closer to McDowell, I put on my jumpsuit once more to keep warm and give them an easy target to find as they drove to the loading zone.  Since we were so close to the fence line, when a teammate notified us they were at the gate of the park, we could dart out to the line, grab the items out of their truck, and get them back to camp without the hassle of using the loading zone, which was filling up fast.


“Does this hazmat suit make my butt look big?”

Eventually, everyone joined us and settled into our home for the next day and a half.


Ryan and Bryan relaxing at camp

We headed down to officially check-in for the event as well as investigate the start/finish line setup and transition tent. 


Snagging a picture with the official Ragnar trailer


Matt and Jake, ready to check in


The finish line arch
Photo courtesy of Jen

As you may have sussed out by now, our team name was Breaking Rag, inspired by the tv show Breaking Bad, and by Jake’s somewhat uncanny resemblance to the main character, Walter White, when he wears his facial hair a certain way.  While we were checking in, a random dude on another team came over to Jake, asking for a picture.  Apparently, Kevin (as this was his name) was often told by his friends that he looks like Jesse Pinkman, the second main character in the show, and thus, he had to have a photo with Jake.


Selfie time!

We invited Kevin to come by our camp in a bit, to get fully geared up in Breaking Rag attire, including a jumpsuit borrowed from one of us.  The results, as I’m sure you’ll agree, are pretty outstanding:


Truly, kind of creepy, non?

We relaxed for awhile, as we had a few hours to wait until our designated start time just before noon.  We handed out shirts, checked out our fancy race bib, and hung around as a team.



Spencer family selfie!
Photo courtesy of Jen


Whitney and Chris back at camp
Photo courtesy of Jen

On our next installment: Team Breaking Rag actually starts running!  Some crazy people claim this is the whole point of Ragnar, but we know better!

Later!

 Amy

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