Ragnar McDowell 2018 - Couples Therapy

Like in past years, the first day of November saw us starting the drive to Phoenix to participate in the annual Ragnar Trail run series, held at McDowell Mountain on the northeast side of the city.  From reading the blog, you know we've done this race many times before, and this year, our team ended up being four married couples: myself and Chris, Bryan and Jen, Amadeo and Christina, and Jake and Keeli.  While all of us have experienced Ragnars before (Keeli as a photographer and our resident nurse - this would be her first year actually running), we've never had this specific lineup before - we were excited to get there and spend time with our buddies!

Getting ready to start!

From left, Keeli, Jake, Bryan, Jen,

Chris, me, Amadeo, and Christina

I should point out that I took very few pictures

this year, so an advance thank you to everyone

for sharing their shots with me.

We learned a long time ago that camping the night before is a must to securing a good spot for the event; since we would be coming all the way from Long Beach that day, Bryan and Jen did us a major solid and took time off work on Thursday, driving from Tucson to be at the gates of McDowell before they opened.  As we've experienced in the past few years, there's a lot of waiting around when you're an early bird for things like this.

The line of cars waiting to check in

Bryan is ready to go!

Once they made it through the pay station, Bryan and Jen picked out a great spot for our camp, very close to where we've camped in previous years (we're sleepers more than party people, so we pick a spot as far away from the main Ragnar Village as we can).  They started setting things up and waited for the rest of the Thursday night camp patrol to arrive (myself and Chris as well as Amadeo and Christina). 

Jen chilling with our mascot...

...and assembling our "giveaway" bags of rock candy.

We always say, the first one is free!

Bryan is made in the shade!

After stopping at Jake and Keeli's to drop our Saturday night bag (we'd stay with them the nice after the race, before heading home on Sunday morning), we arrived at McDowell somewhere in the 4:30pm time frame, and Amadeo and Christina followed right behind us.  The six of us had a lovely catch-up session with one another, and we helped unpack and set up further while also settling in for the evening (we also checked in to the race itself, grabbed our bib, and got tickets for t-shirts and the Saturday night meal).

Ragnar has set "quiet time" hours for each night of the event, running from roughly midnight to 6am.  Since all of us are early birds with normal, 40 year old bedtimes (aka, the bedtimes of people who work for a living), we tuckered out a few hours before that, and although our neighbors were noisy, we couldn't really begrudge them having fun.  However, once 12:00, then 12:15, then 12:30 rolled around, and they were still screaming across their personal (and highly illegal) firepit, playing giant Jenga, blasting music, and taking copious shots of Fireball, we decided to get involved.  Security helped us out (and so did some other neighboring teams), and they eventually quieted down...until a few hours later, when we heard all of them waking up and yarping into nearby bushes.  Serves the little shi*ts right (I'm probably just jealous that they could do that and then run a trail relay the next day - if I pulled a stunt like that now, I'd be hospitalized for a week, minimum).  Although we were all a bit worse for wear from the lack of sleep Thursday night, the experience did spawn quite a few good shared memes in future weeks, including this one:

Goddamn it, Julio!

When Christina and I went to their campsite

to plead with them to keep it down,

we were offered shots of their Fireball.

It was just so kind of them to share,

but we declined.

The next morning dawned quite early, and we and all of the camps around us did our level best to attempt to keep things quiet for the poor kids who were surely regretting all that alcohol (ha!  I heard several other teams walking past this campsite and yelling "JENGA!" at the tops of their lungs - those are our fellow petty people).  We made coffee and fired up the camp stove to toast some bagels while we waited for Jake and Keeli to arrive.

Honestly, it's hard to beat an Arizona sunrise

over Four Peaks

Jake and Keeli arrived before too much longer, and it was great to have the whole gang back together!  We hung out, visited, and compared our newest injuries, aches, and pains, as we are wont to do (seriously - can you imagine us in like 30 years?  Those are going to be some epic b*tch fests).  Oh, fair warning - there's more toe carnage on this blog than in past years.  Scroll past quickly, if you're wigged out by that stuff.

By this point, I'd already lost my right big toenail,

and my left was quickly moving in the same direction.

As it turns out, unbeknownst to me,

the rest of the team made a betting chart

on when this one would fall off (after which loop).

I was the only one who guessed correctly - 

it didn't come off until after the race,

when I soaked it at home.

The horror toe from straight on - 

see how you can see under the nail?

EEEEEEEEEEE.

When it got a bit nearer to our start time of noon, we headed up to the official Transition Tent to send Jake off in style.

Our start line shot - hey -

we still look moderately clean here!

Jake in the tent, ready to start

Moseying around outside,

waiting to start running

The foghorn went off for the noon starts and Jake came pounding down the trail for his turn around the green loop.

Here come the nooners!

There's Jake!

Time to head back to camp and get in the shade!

Those of us who had legs coming up soon started our prep (the green loop was only 4 miles, so Jake would be back relatively quickly), while others with later slots grabbed the chance to catch up on shut-eye (goddamn it, Julio!).

Christina and Chris, chilling out

Sleepy Amadeo selfie!

Jake handed off to Bryan, and I followed Bryan in the rotation.

Looking down the finish line chute - 

I think that's Bryan

I was Runner 3 again (I like the Runner 3 spot), so I got my longest loop, red, out of the way first.  The temperature was on the toasty side - in the mid-80s - and it was sunny, but I think I paced myself well, and I was able to stay pretty close to my expected pace of 10:30 miles.  I handed off to Jen, and she started out on her first loop, green.

Zoom!  There goes Jen!

As it turns out, I wasn't the only one having toe concerns; during this time, Jake had a recurring blister that would pop up during certain runs, and of course, it made an appearance at Ragnar.  By the end of our adventure (Jake actually ran 4 loops this year, doing Keeli's red for her and all of his own - he was training for Ironman AZ, so he was fine!), the normal blister fluid was mixed with a bit of blood, so it was really pretty.  We started a second betting chart on when that thing would pop, but it also lasted the entire event.

I told you - lots of toe pics this year.

After every loop Jake or I ran,

everyone still awake would crowd around

as we removed our socks,

giving muffled "yessss!" or "noooo!"s,

according to the bets they placed earlier.

Jen handed off to Christina, then Christina to Chris, and Chris to Amadeo.  As Amadeo started his first loop and handed things off to Keeli for hers, night began to fall, and we took turns eating dinner, sleeping when we could, and venturing to the Ragnar Village for some salad and cookies (they offer a whole pasta dinner, but it's normally kind of meh - it's hard to make amazing food for hundreds of runners over a four hour period - we just ate the salad and cookies and took the opportunity to make great pasta at our own campsite).

Our famous sign, all lit up and shining bright!

Check out the pack of rock candy,

illuminated by one of the glow sticks Keeli brought along.

Amadeo and Christina,

enjoying the evening

My second run, yellow, was around 11pm, and it wasn't my favorite.  In past years, I'd loved this trail, but as I get older, maybe my tolerance for dusty, scary, ridiculously steep trail running has receded somewhat.  Anyway, it went fine, if a bit slower than my expected pace.  As I headed back to change into warm, dry clothes and crash out until morning, the rest of the team soldiered on.  Eventually, dawn broke once more, and we all started moving, ready for breakfast.  I had a small bite, as my final leg, a speedy trip around green, happened right around 8am.  I handed off to Jen for the last time and stumbled back to camp, happy to be done!

Jake and Keeli greet the day!

Everyone cycled through once more, and those of us back at camp started to clean up and organize things for the journey home.  Eventually, Jake headed to the start tent for our final leg, the last trip around red.

As you can see, Jake did us the favor

of wearing the brightest running outfit known to man.

You see him before you even notice the volunteer

in the hazard-yellow construction vest.

There he goes!

Back at camp, we kept an eye on the time, and when we thought he was 15 minutes away, we started our normal swagger through the campsites, on our way to the finish line.  We did our normal "toss the rock candy and pretend it's meth" to the other teams, and it always astounds me how many people are like, "is this real?"  Dude, no.  The real sh*t is expensive.

Anywhoo, we eventually saw Jake come over the final rise; we re-suited up (standing in those things is hot, so I normally ditch mine after the stroll through the campsites), gave him the apron and the bear, and we headed across the finish line, to much applause (actually, people really do seem to like the Breaking Rag theme, and they recognize us year after year, so that's nice).

"Everybody put on your suits!"

"Here comes Jake!"

There's always time for a quick selfie!

"Here we go!"

After chasing Jake across the finish line, we grabbed our finishers' medals and hopped in line for our official finishers' picture:

Hooray!  Another awesome Ragnar in the books!

Half of us headed back to camp while the other half (one of each couple) went to get the vehicles and bring them to the gear pick up spot.  We started hauling packed up gear to the designated location, and after some confusion with all of us finding each other, we eventually got everything in the right car.  All of us hopped into our respective vehicles and made our next stop the All American Sports Grill, a great spot introduced to us by Jen and Bryan, who eat there post-Ragnar every year.  It was great, and afterward, we bid the fondest of adieus to Christina and Amadeo as well as Jen and Bryan.  

We followed Jake and Keeli back to their house, where we all took the best showers in the entire world (nothing like camping and running for two full days to make you fall in love all over with an amazing shower); we spent the rest of the night relaxing at their house, ordering pizza, and watching football.  The next morning, after a good brunch at First Watch, it was back on the road for the Olsen's, heading west once more.  Although we hit some traffic due to a massive pileup on the 10 (thankfully, we weren't anywhere near it - we just found it after it happened), we made it home in the late afternoon and spent the rest of the evening unpacking and hanging out with the kiddo!

Super awesome!

As always, we had an amazing time at Ragnar McDowell - the event is great, the other teams are normally awesome (goddamn it, Julio!), and of course, the best part by far is seeing the fantastic friends during our time in Arizona, whom we miss quite a lot.  We've already signed up for our 2019 Ragnar Trail, but we're venturing out this time - to Ragnar Snowmass!  The elevation is horrifying, so we'll see how this goes!

Later!

Amy