Rocky Mountain High - Ragnar Snowmass 2019 - Part 2

In Part 1 of the Ragnar Snowmass series, we finally made it to Denver, then to Snowmass itself!  Huzzah!

Our Thursday night camping in the Ragnar village was quieter than normal at McDowell (damn it, Julio!!!!), and much of this could probably be attributed to being in the Glamping sector, which had far fewer teams than the general camping area did.  Regardless, we all slept pretty well, whether it was due to the relative lack of noise or the sweet cots that came with our setup.

As always, I woke up before everyone else and decided to wander around a bit, so I wouldn't wake up the rest of the group.

Wide awake selfie!

Someone slumbers on

The sun's starting to come up over the Glamping tents

Dawn breaking...Rag!

Eventually, the rest of the team started to stir, and we got down to the important business of making coffee using Tim's fancy setup and warming up the breakfast burritos Jen and Bryan made for us back at their family's house in Denver.

He's awake!

We chilled out for a bit and once 10am rolled around, we strolled to the start line to catch our 10:30 start time.  Unfortunately, Christina and Amadeo were running a bit later than expected, so they couldn't be in our start line photos, but we did our best without them:

Jake headed into the transition tent, and the rest of us staked out spots along the beginning of the course, so we could kick this thing off in style.

Jen and Bryan, waiting for Jake to start

Refilling the water bottle for the 800th time.

We were trying to be really good about hydration,

due to the elevation.

Tim and Chris, properly hydrating.

All the cool kids are doing it!

Eventually, 10:30 rolled around, and Jake came blasting out of the transition tent, leading most of the other runners on his spin around the green loop (when he got back, he told us that he looked at his watch and he was moving waaay too fast at this point - oh well, at least it looked good for the start line crowds).

Here he comes...

...and there he goes!

Bye, Jake!

The rest of us headed back to the tent, to get some rest, change for our upcoming runs, and to welcome Amadeo and Christina into our midst.  As fun as it is to have everyone camping multiple nights, it can be really helpful to have folks coming in on Friday morning to pick up last minute supplies ("can you please get moleskin and at least three more packages of baby wipes?"), and these two didn't let us down.

Jake came in as expected, and Bryan headed out for his spin around yellow.  Both Bryan and Jake captured some great shots of their loops:

Green

Yellow

We also took an awful lot of selfies on these loops

Bryan finished strong, and it was my turn to run, kicking off the team's set of red loops (starting around 12:30pm or so).  All of the loops had their high and low points, but red was a real kicker - it started at the elevation of the village (about 7500 feet) and over the course of 3.5 miles, went straight up into the sky, topping out at 9003 feet by my Suunto.  The good news was that it was outstandingly pretty, as was much of each course (and most of Colorado, in general, it seems).

Crap!  Down one Road ID band

(it had lasted me quite some time)

Jake was practicing his photography skills

while we waited for Bryan

So pretty

Selfie time!

Here we go!

Red started out on pavement, first on the cycling/walking/running trail that paralleled the car road through Snowmass Village:

After about 1-1.5 miles, the course crossed the main road and headed up into a nearby neighborhood, still on the asphalt:

I turned around here and took a shot of 

the road behind me.

Trust me, it was all uphill at this point.

You could clearly see down into Snowmass Village and our Ragnar setup from the side of the road here.

...and zoom...

Around mile 2.5, there was a short bit of fire road (while I was on this section, a hiking group passed me heading downhill.  I got cheers, which was fun), and after that, we transitioned to true trail for the rest of the climb to the summit.  As I may have mentioned multiple times, it was crazy gorgeous up there:

After I hit the summit, the trail started down immediately, and over the next 3 miles, I lost all of the elevation I'd worked so hard to gain, but it was a freaking blast.  The trail was single track but moderately cushy (medium packed dirt, which is like running on pillows for us AZ trail folks), and it had wide, banking turns with a few wooden bridge crossings.  I bombed down it like a madwoman, and I had such a good time.

I came back into the tent and Jen headed out for her first loop, a spin around green.

 I love her hair in this picture!

You can feel it going, wooooop!

Some of the gang checking out the Glamping "gathering" tent - 

I assume this is while I was out on red

While our next few runners headed out in rotation (Christina, then Chris, then Amadeo), I tried to nap on my cot, although since our "pod" was on the sunny side, it was a bit too toasty.  I just relaxed instead, and drank a lot of water.

I thought my legs were dirty after red,

but I had no idea what awaited me on yellow...

More foot pictures!

This time, from inside our tent.

Chris grabbed some shots from his first loop, which was also red (new family motto - Olsen: We do Red First):

Like I said, lotsa selfies in this one

Since I couldn't sleep, I wandered down to the transition tent with a few other folks to welcome him back from his jaunt.

As always, Jake's pictures far surpass the rest of ours

Amadeo's green loop went off quite well, and Tim headed out on yellow to close out our first set of legs.

Ahhh, refreshing fizzy water!

Tim was, by far, the zoomiest member of our team.

On the next blog, we start our second and third sets of loops, I wander into the middle of a t-rex dance party, and the yellow loop claims many of our socks!

Later!

Amy