Accomplishing Ragnar 2014 -- Part 1

Our friend, and Ron's band-mate Shelly, asked if I'd be interested in running Ragnar earlier this year and since then, Ragnar Great River has really been my theme. I spent a lot of time agonizing and training, then after an injury (peroneal tendonitis) in mid-July, I spent even more time agonizing. Training resumed again on Aug. 2 and I went into Ragnar weekend not feeling as prepared as I would have liked to have been.

So, what is Ragnar??  Ragnar Great River is a 12-person (2 vans), over-night relay from Winona, MN - Minneapolis, MN. It's 206 miles of country roads, winding hills, residential roads, long, hot highways, city streets and river paths.

I was assigned Runner 7, in van 2.  Along with me, were Wendy, Lisel, Angie, Cheryl and Rachana. Before we hopped in our van I had never met Angie or Cheryl. Rachana I met once at our planning meeting. Lisel and I went to the same highschool, but never got to know each other then and hadn't seen each other since. Wendy and I were roommates in our early 20s but it had been at least 4 years since I had seen her! Our van driver was my husband, the only person in our van that I knew pretty well. 10 years of sleeping in the same bed kind of well.

Since our first legs started in Modena, WI, we didn't have to meet up until 9am on Friday morning. We met at my place, where we quickly realized that fitting 7 people and all of our gear in Wendy's minivan was going to be a tight squeeze, but we managed. We made it about 20 minutes outside of Modena when all of our morning hydrating efforts signaled -- we needed to stop to pee! After a brief pit-stop, we hopped back into the minivan and through the rolling farmland of Wisconsin to exchange 6, where we needed to pick up our packets, go through safety training and take over running the next six legs.

It's at these big exchanges that everyone from both teams is finally able to connect, for only a brief time. Since I was the first runner from my van, I would be the one to take the slap bracelet from Wade and start our legs. I had been really concerned about this first leg as the leg map rated it very hard and I started hearing about the hill that came three miles in. A hill that gained 400ft in elevation in just over a .5 miles. So the hill -- it was long and steep and brought me to a walk in a few spots, but it wasn't super terrible. Truthfully, everyone had hills and this was certainly not the worst of them. My vans were cheering me on over the top and stopped to hand off some water when I arrived at the top. The last half of the run was mainly downhill, but it was hot and heat index would soon be over 100.  I was thankful to find our friends in van 2 handing out more water around the bend that I used mainly to just dump over my head!

After my 6 miles I handed the bracelet off to Wendy for her 5.2 mile run. Thankfully, Cheryl was standing by with her water bottle for me to hydrate back up again and get back in the van so we could meet Wendy a few miles down the road and support her. We basically played leap frog for much of the day, supporting our runners and meeting them at their finish so our next runner could get out and go. Lisel had 5 miles after that on gravel hills and each van that came by kicked up a mouthful of dust for Lisel to endure. Her leg ended at Nelson's Cremery, which brought back some great memories for me as my grandparents used to take me on roadtrips to this place. It was such a welcoming sight and so was the Blood Orange San Pellegrino I bought in the store!

Cheryl's run ended up being at the very hottest part of the day on 8 miles of blacktop highway without an ounce of shade! After getting to about mile 6.5 this poor girl needed some help. We were able to get her more water, a visor and some running company. Being that I already ran and was the most recuperated, I thought it best if I head out for a mile with her and Lisel met us with the last mile to go.  It was just after that run that Ragnar sent an official text warning us to watch our runners as the heat index was getting very high. We used ice packs to cool Cheryl down while Rachana started out for her 4 miles. Then Angie had a hard 6.2 that brought us to a park in Stockholm, WI. We used the porta-potties, roasted marshmallows for s'mores, took some photos all before heading into the van to decide how to spend our time off while van 1 took it from here.

We motored on to Ellsworth, WI where the next big exchange would be.We loaded up on water and ice and found a little mom and pop diner to eat. Unfortunately, the diner was a bit on the slow side and we used a lot of our break time waiting for food when we probably should have been resting. However, we had fun getting to know each other more and meeting other runners who had come in to the dinner as well.

Then, we went to the highschool in Ellsworth, which thankfully was open to runners for indoor bathrooms, showers and sleeping. Though the sleeping was on a gymnasium floor and even through the people whispering, walking hard, rolling suitcases in, I was able to sleep for about 30 minutes! Which was great because my next leg started at midnight!

As I waited for sleep to find me I reflected on the day. I realized that I already felt like these six women were my friends, they looked out for me, helped me get through a hard run, supported me and cheered me on. I also thought about how much of a disaster it could have been to put 6 women into a crowded van and expect them to get along during a time when they were tired, beat up, worn down and putting their bodies through something so exhausting. Plain and simple we were raw in front of people we barely knew and we did great!  It was pleasant and refreshing! I'll continue the blogging about our night runs next up!