Pining for the Fjords

Previously on the blog , Ragnar after dark.  Cue the glow sticks! Once my legs were finished, I headed back to camp and changed back into my comfy, warm, non-running clothes, as well as fresh undergarments and the like.  Truly, there's nothing that will make you appreciate comfy, "real" clothes more than not wearing them for a good 24 hours while you're all sweaty and gross from running.  Ahhh, soft cotton underoos. Okay, anyway, the sun was coming back up and camp life was once again stirring.  With Jen on yellow and Christina on red, the rest of us starting making hot beverages and warming up breakfast burritos, homemade by Jen earlier in the week.  They were delicious, and since she made enough to feed our entire team thrice over, we were happy to share some with our BNE. Nom! Tired but happy It was also during this time, changing back into normal clothes, that I discovered this fun little number.  I'm not really prone to blood blis...

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...

On the last blog , Chris and I attempted to sleep on Thursday night at McDowell, which was made difficult by a bunch of idiots singing the "BOMP-BOMP-BOMP" part of "Sweet Caroline," over and over.  Awesome. Anywhoo, Friday morning finally dawned, and the two of us started stirring around camp, making coffee and the like.  To pay the BNE back for their assistance the night before (did I also mention they gave us an extra lighter for our camp stove, which was the one thing we forgot to bring?  They were seriously awesome), we made them some coffee in our fancy camping French press, and to further the Ragnar love, they offered us some hot breakfast from their camp, in the form of pancakes (made with protein powder and fresh bananas), fruit, bacon, eggs, and sausage.  While we waited for them to put all of this together, we hung out and made contact with the rest of our folks, to assess tentative arrival times. Snuggled up in our warm clothes with warm b...

As I mentioned in the previous blog, Chris and I arrived in Tempe late on Wednesday night before Ragnar, and we enjoyed a wonderful lunch with my team from work on Thursday. After we said adieu to Eric, Jesse, and Trisha, we headed northeasterly into Scottsdale and toward McDowell Mountain Regional Park, site of the race shenanigans.  We made a quick stop at a Safeway en route to change from our nicer clothes into Ragnar/camping wear and pick up some last minute provisions - lunchmeat and cheese for wraps, more cold beer, spinach, and the like.  When we pulled into the Safeway parking lot (shaded with solar panels - nice!), we beheld this magical automotive unicorn: Oh, Scottsdale. You never disappoint. After all of our shopping and changing, it was back on the road; we ended up arriving at McDowell around 2:30, just after the gates for the park opened for Ragnarians.  In the past, the gear drop process has been sort of a cluster, so Ragnar tried out a new...