Surely by now, everyone who's known me longer than a day knows what a Ragnar is. So I don't need to give the whole history. So here's the break down: 200-ish miles, 12 runners, 2 vans and you keep going until you finish.
We started this one up at the Las Vegas Ski Resort (I didn't even know Vegas had one of those.) It's only about 45 minutes outside of Vegas, but it was plenty cold. We had an 11am start & it was a balmy 29 degrees up there. Which was a little weird because the sun actually felt warm.
This is Joe Cox, our first runner at the start line. He looked away just as I took the picture. Joe's from Miami and ran the infamous Florida Keys race with us a couple of years ago where we were all sick and practically crawling to the finish. In fact, he was so sick he didn't even make it down to the finish line, he was in the hotel just dying. Fortunately this experience went much better.
Apparently they have to make their own snow.
Here's the rest of our van T-Bone (Terrence), Me, Mom, Jacob & Pat the "Tourettes-a-saurus Rex." (He gave himself that nickname.)
It was a fun group but the 3 guys from Miami were pretty shocked by how cold it was. Vegas did have a cold spell for the weekend. The temps never got out of the 40's & 50's, so it would have been perfect running weather had it not been so blasted windy. But oh well, we still did pretty well.
Our team name was actually "The Parole Models" which is funny and ironic since a full half of our team is with the FBI. Somehow I didn't get any pictures of the team name on the side of the van, but you can see we did this whole prison/dept of corrections thing complete with orange shirts, stripes and mug shots.
They dubbed me "Brenda the Jeweler" which has a backstory, but I won't get into it.
And there I get to take off for my first 5.8 miles.
It was kind of a crappy run because all I did was run along the side of the highway with a vicious headwind trying to slow me down. But oh well. This race was very different from the other Ragnar's I've done, in that, instead of running from one point to another it kind of just wound a semi-circle around the outskirts of Vegas. The big advantage to that was that we were never more than 20 minutes away from the hotel. So when we were the "off" van, we could go back into town to find food and relax and even hit the hotel to shower and rest for a couple of hours.
And here somehow we've fast-forwarded through the night to Saturday morning and the prep for our final legs of the race. I can't believe I ran in those tights. They were not comfortable for running, but hey they looked cute. And besides my final leg was only 3.5 miles so I toughed it out.
My sister Shiloh got a screen printing machine not too long ago, so she did these shirts for us. I think they turned out pretty cute.
Mom & I had a great time in the van with these guys they were a kick in the pants! And I'm so glad Joe Cox and I got to run together again this time without ending up on our deathbeds.
Cami and Cody were in the other van with Cami's friends Yolanda & Megan and the other two FBI dudes, Charles and Mark so I barely got to see them. But it was fun to hang out with them in between exchanges anyway.
OH and here's a fun fact! I was flipping through the "RagMag" before we ever started running (that's the book you get at the beginning which as the course map, race rules and a few interesting tidbits like runner spotlights) and I came across a picture of my family from the Florida race. Turns out my mom was one of the spotlight runners for this race. She said she sent her story and pictures into Ragnar, but they'd never told her they were going to use them, so she was as surprised as the rest of us. But it was still pretty cool.
Poor Cami and Jacob had to be in separate vans so they only got to see each other at the exchanges as well. But you know they get to see each other all the time anyway, so it's okay.
And here we all are: Yolanda, Megan, Mark, Joe, Charles, Pat, Mom, T-Bone, Jacob, Me, Cami & Cody. It was honestly one of the most fun groups I've ever run with!
And of course the highlight for me was getting my 3 medals. My Vegas medal, and my Saints & Sinners for having done Utah earlier this year and a Deuces Wild for having done Florida in January. Not a bad haul for one race.
