Gotta Get Up To Get Down- Ragnar Recap (Part 3)

So now that I've gotten all of the running out of the way, it's time to PARTY!

(Note: If you missed the first two parts of my recap, they can be found here: Part 1 and Part 2)

I breathed a huge sigh of relief when I finished my last leg. I was hurting and tired, but I had pushed through! The rest of the day I got to just be along for the ride, hopping out to cheer on our runners and just enjoy being with the team.

Finally, we dropped Chris off at the start of the very last leg of the relay (this was supposed to be my leg but we had switched). We had a good amount of time to head to the finish since the leg was 7.5 miles. On our way, we dropped Bruce and Sykes off at the 3 mile out mark and 1 mile out mark, so that they could be waiting for Chris and join him for support near the end of his run. The rest of us parked at the huge finish line lot at Silver Strand State Beach and met up with our other van of runners (minus two, who had also run up the course a mile to join Chris). Those of us that were injured/exhausted/over running made our way through the tunnel in front of the finish line to meet our team as they ran in so that we could all finish together.

Sean and our mascot, Tiny the T-Rex

When we saw the other neon yellow shirts come around the corner, IT WAS ON! We (and our mascot, Tiny) crossed the finish line as a team as the announcers called out our team name, and just like that, Ragnar was over. We had made excellent time and we already immensely proud of ourselves. We were given our bag of medals and excitedly divvied them up, and I headed over to the ten to get my double medal for the LA Marathon and Ragnar finishers (I might have even brought my LA medal to the finish line for some pictures). We took our formal team picture at the finish, along with some other fun shots and headed over to get our FREE PIZZA AND BEER at the finish line party (free food? yes, please!).

Finish line and 3 medals!

Sean, Me, and Adam

As we sat around with our libations, recounting funny stories from the course, they had a DJ out in the party area and we couldn't help but get up and sing and dance to songs from Grease (hey, we were just thrilled to not be running anymore!).

Tiny and I rockin our medals at the finish line party

I headed out to the beach to get some photos of my medals before hopping in the van with the rest of us party-poopers who were too tired to go beer tasting with the rest of the team in San Diego. I napped for most of the ride home and had never been happier to take a shower and put on clean clothes when I finally arrived home.

Love the new bling!

Ragnar was truly an amazing experience. I didn't know how I would handle the sleep deprivation and being cooped up in a van for two days, but it went surprisingly better than I had thought. While I had originally planned on it being a "One and done" sort of race for me, I can't wait to participate again next year, hopefully healthier and able to push myself more.

And for those of you who are curious, our team finished 52nd overall, which is not bad considering the 700 teams that participated! And that was with two injured runners and and entire team of Ragnar newbies!

Our official Finish Line photo

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...

Gotta Get Up To Get Down: Ragnar Recap (Part 1)

I first heard about Ragnar a year ago, when Team Sparkle was holding a virtual run to benefit their #RagnarforRett Ultra Ragnar team. In case you don't know, Ragnar SoCal is a 190.6 mile relay run that starts in Huntington Beach and goes all the way to San Diego. Most teams have 12 runners to a team and each runner runs 3 legs (runner 1 runs legs 1, 13, and 25, etc). The relay typically takes 25-35 hours or so, and yes, you run in the middle of the night.

I was intrigued by the idea of running a relay, although not totally sold, until Ragnar and the LA Marathon announced that they would be offering a beautiful challenge medal for anyone crazy intense enough to run any Ragnar in 2015 and the 2016 LA Marathon, or the 2016 LA Marathon and either Ragnar SoCal, Los Vegas, or Napa. Well, I couldn't turn down that medal, so I did some searching for a team in need of another runner. I didn't have to look too hard to find Veronica, team captain of team "Gotta Get Up To Get Down", and a Pepperdine alum. After chatting with her about the team and finding that we were still a few runners short, I recruited two high school friends to run with me and started researching everything there was to know about the Ragnar experience.

Fast forward a few months and the day was upon us. I had been battling IT Band issues for over a month, but had cleared with my physical therapist that I wasn't going to do any serious damage by running (although there was a potential it was going to be incredibly painful to run 14 miles over the weekend). Our team had decorated our vans the night before and were armed with 500 magnets with our team logo to tag other vans along the course. Logistics were a little crazy as I had to present at a conference that morning (way to double book yourself, Kelsey). Luckily, the conference was only 20 minutes away from the first major exchange, Exchange 6 (where the last runner in Van 1 hands off to the first runner in Van 2). I was the 12th and final runner for our team, so my vanmates were going to swing by to get me before heading to Exchange 6.

We used almost every last magnet in tagging vans throughout the weekend

The second my presentation finished, I darted to the bathroom, changed into outfit 1 of 3, and booked it out to the curb to wait for the van. When I jumped in the van, I met a few teammates who hadn't been at the van decorating the night before and off we went to Exchange 6.

After sitting through a terribly boring safety lecture (I mean, it was probably helpful for those people who hadn't read the "Race Bible" but as I had read it front to back on multiple occasions, I was already set), we got our t-shirts and bibs and milled around, checking out booths (and I stocked up on Nuun). Soon we got the heads up from Van 1 that our runner 6, Matthias, was closing in on the exchange and that Adam needed to be ready to receive the baton (which is actually a fairly awesome orange slap bracelet).

When Adam took off, it was ON! Adam's leg was pretty long and did not allow van support (aka us getting out to cheer along the course), so us in Van 2 took it as an opportunity to go grab a real meal and take it easy on our way over to Exchange 7.

Adam warming  up for his first leg at Exchange 6

Even though I had just met several of my vanmates for the first time (and I was in a van with only guys, Adam, Christopher, Sykes, Sean, and Bruce), we bonded quickly and shenanigans ensued throughout the whole weekend. At Exchange 10, Bruce decided that there was no way that he wanted to run in safety gear (a reflective vest, headlamp, and taillight were required between the hours of 6:15pm and 7am), and swore that he could run his 8 mile leg in 55 minutes so as to come in right before 6:15. Sure enough, he put on the speed and after being catcalled by our van "BRUCE YOUR THIGHS ARE ON POINT" and taunted with safety gear along his leg, came in right around 6:10pm, slapping the bracelet on my wrist for my first leg (fully decked out in all of my reflective glory).

Ready to run! (with my super cute reflective gear and ankle tracker)

My leg (Leg 12) was the last leg before a big gap in the route south, due to not  being able to run through Camp Pendleton. So while my leg would end at Doheny Beach in Dana Point, our next runner would take off from a middle school in Oceanside, some 40 miles away. Our runner would be notified when I was about a quarter of a mile from the end of my leg, thanks to a tracking chip that I would wear for my leg.

I took it easy coming out of the exchange, not knowing how long I would hold up before running into knee pain. My leg was 4 miles, which would have been a breeze on any other day, but of course this injury wasn't going to make the experience easy. I made it a mile into the leg without much discomfort, but I could feel the muscle tensing up and it quickly turned into a nagging pain. Luckily, most of my leg was downhill and easier to handle than having to pull myself uphill. The last mile was marred by stoplights, and I was incredibly thankful when I got to the timing mat that would notify Van 1 that I was getting close to then end. I cruised into Doheny State Beach in relief, but after I stopped moving, I found it almost impossible to bend my knee. NOT GOOD.

Not a bad view!

Since this post has been plenty long for everyone, I'll continue in Part II.