Ragnar McDowell 2015 – Saturday

Want to read more of the story?  Start here:  Thursday, Friday Morning, Friday Afternoon, Friday Evening

On the last blog, we hit the infamous Ragnar After Dark time period, which was slightly less infamous this year, as most of us have gotten better at sleeping in a tent.  Huzzah!

After my final leg closed out around 5am, I didn’t really want to go back to sleep, so I stayed awake, enjoying the last vestiges of dark and watching the camp start to stir to life.  The winds had really picked up by this point (it’s always windy out on the mountain, regardless of the weather the rest of the city is enjoying), so we ended up taking down the cool Ragnar flags Ryan and Tara made a few years back, from fear that they’d dislodge themselves and fly away.  We also rescued the changing canopy from blowing away and/or ripping through another team’s tent by stacking heavier items around its base (water jugs and the medical supplies bag – I don’t know what Jake keeps in that thing, but it weighs like 87 pounds).

Eventually, everyone started waking up (except for the folks out actively running – they were already awake), so we booted up the camp stove and started heating up water for hot drinks and the delicious breakfast burritos from Tara.

The Spencer contingent greets the day!

Matt enjoying his burrito

We enjoyed each other’s company and when Jake headed out for our second to last leg of the relay, we started packing up camp. 

Air mattresses were deflated:

Additionally, stock was taken on how many wristbands we’d “accidentally” stolen from the transition tent:

You’re not supposed to take those,

you bunch of kleptos!

Jake came back, Jen went out, and at the appropriate time, we donned all our Breaking Rag paraphernalia and paraded through the campsites to meet Jen at the finish line.  When Bryan and Jen bought the official Breaking Rag bear off Amazon, it came with several packets of blue rock candy, and we enjoyed tossing those to the members of the other teams, hollering, “free samples!”

Super cool slo mo stroll through camp

The back of our team shirts,

currently being modeled by Ryan.

We also stopped by the announcer’s area at the transition tent to hand out goodies:

We made it on Instagram again!

We parked ourselves on the final stretch of the course, ready to run in with Jen when she finished our final leg.  Although it was still a bit chilly, walking around in a jumpsuit and then standing in the sun will get to you after awhile:

Modeling the finest in hazmat fashion.

We had some good responses to the outfits, and apparently, the official race photographs agreed, as they asked us to back up a bit further on the course, so we could start our final run-in together in an extremely picturesque manner.  Check this shnit out:

Pretty damn cool, right?

We picked up our official finisher’s medals, which were designed to be handy multi-tools.  While they’re cool, they have so many sharp points and blade edges on them that I hung mine carefully in the garage and will never go near it again.  We grabbed a few final pics before we headed back to the campsite:

Hooray, team!

Team Olsen, represent!

We finished tearing down the camp, helped everyone pack up into their respective vehicles, dropped Jake back at his house and finally made it back to ours around 2pm, where we enjoyed the best showers in the world and promptly fell asleep for a few hours.  Another successful Ragnar in the books!  Thank you, as always, to my outstanding friends and teammates for all of your parts in this awesome adventure!

Later,

Amy