Gotta Get Up To Get Down-Ragnar Recap (Part 2)

Well, I've really been taking my sweet time with my Ragnar Recap, but I swear it's all for good reason. The last two weeks have been really busy with work and family life and I'm trying to balance this blog with everything else.

Okay so where were we....

Part I left off at the end of my first leg at Doheny Beach, and I was in pain. Luckily, one of my vanmates is a trainer and knew how to stretch me out so that I could actually bend my knee again. So after I changed out of my sweaty clothes into my second race outfit (after getting as clean as possible using a Shower Pill), Bruce took me to the med tent to use a cot to stretch. After that, I was feeling pretty good and we all loaded into the van to make the trip down to the next major exchange. We grabbed dinner at Chic-Fil-A (I was so hungry that I pretty much would have eaten anything), and stocked up on some groceries for the next morning. When we got to the exchange we tagged a bunch of vans with our magnets before trying to grab a little sleep. For most of the night my memories are pretty fuzzy. It was mostly me trying to catch sleep where I could before my 2am second leg.

At exchange 23 I hopped out with my wonderful vanmate, Christopher, who volunteered to be my pacer for the leg. I had been nervous both about running in the dark and concerned that my knee would give me issues, so I felt more comfortable having someone with me. The leg was pretty uneventful, other than it ended up being a half mile longer than was marked on the leg map. I kept waiting for the famous "1 mile to go" sign, but it took another half mile to finally see it. By then my knee was feeling pretty bad and the exhaustion was getting to me. Chris was my constant cheerleader, though, and we made it through.

Chris and I after our 2am leg!

At that point, our van was done with our second legs and once again booked it to the last major exchange in La Jolla to get some sleep. We were parked in an absolutely massive lot overlooking the ocean (which I wouldn't actually realize until I woke up around 6am and limped across the lot to try to find the bathrooms, basically as far away as humanly possible). Before we caught some shut-eye, Chris told me that he thought we should swap our last legs, since he was concerned that I wouldn't be able to complete the last 7.5 mile leg with how bad my knee had gotten. I was frustrated by this, as I hate not being able to finish what I started, but the next morning I realized that he was right. Since we knew that we weren't going to win any category, we weren't concerned with switching these legs.

So with the switch, I was now running as the #8 runner for my last leg, which didn't give me a ton of time after we woke up and left the major exchange to get ready. I had a Luna bar and some water, and rolled my leg out as much as possible before my time to run.

Waiting for my handoff was a lot of fun, because I was relieved that I'd be running a shorter distance and that I was almost done! Not to mention, Adam would be handing the slap bracelet off to me and I would give it to Sean, so it was fun to have my old friends on either side of me. It made for some fun pictures as well!

The best Van-Fam a girl could ask for

As Adam powered in for his last leg, he slapped the bracelet on my wrist and I was off for my easy 3.5 mile run (or so I thought). A mile in I stupidly missed a turn sign and ended up running a quarter of a mile off the course, which I then had to backtrack to get back to the right turn. The leg ran along the strand of Mission Beach, which meant dodging a lot of walkers and cyclists. I was also in a lot of pain at this point. Luckily, a nice runner caught up with me and chatted with me for a good chunk of the mile, keeping my spirits up, before I told him to continue on because I needed a walk break. I was incredibly relieved to see the "one mile to go" sign and even more so to slap the bracelet on Sean and finally be finished. The hardest part was over and now I could really enjoy cheering for my teammates and getting to the big finish line party!

To be continued...