A few years ago I wouldn't have imagined typing this next line - I had a really fun time running the RAGNAR relay over the past two days.
Our team was running to promote organ donation awareness. Thus, no kills recorded. Van 1 was a group of surgeons and hepatologists from the Mayo Clinic. Van 2 was an an ecclectic bunch from Intermountain Healthcare, Kansas University, PRA Health Sciences, and BD Medical (our ringer).
We drove up to Eden and spent Friday morning playing basketball at a cabin owned by a teammate's family in Eden. Once the temperature finally started pushing 100 degrees, we were off...
Friday 6:45pm - Leg 9 - 7.6 miles up the old Snowbasin road in 55:17 (7:15 pace). This was a solid climb (+1500 net gain) with beautiful views looking back down over the Pineview Reservoir.
Friday 8:30pm - Leg 10 - 3 miles down the Trapper's Loop road (5:30 pace). A mid-run asthma flare-up caused one of our teammates to abandon her leg... luckily I hadn't taken my shoes off yet and was able to jump in. Too downhill for my tastes (-750 feet!)
Attempted to sleep for a few hours... maybe got 20 minutes worth.
Saturday 4:30am - Leg 20 - 2.7 miles starting in Hoytsville (6:25 pace). It was very dark. The run was relatively flat.
Fortunately one of our teammates lives in Park City, so were were able to hang out (shower!!) at her house for the morning while the Mayo van was on the course.
Saturday High Noon - Leg 31 (the Ragnarliest leg ever, +2200 net gain) - 10 miles from Park City to Empire Pass and then towards Guardsman Pass for the exchange in 1:21:15 (8:10 pace). Aerobically I was never really stressed, but I am still lacking the muscular power to hammer a climb like this (although that seems to be coming around). I kept it at a moderately hard effort that wouldn't test my hamstring too much and had fun with it. Honestly I felt bad for almost everyone else that had to run this leg, I bet it took a lot of people 3-4 hours.
Now that I've finally done a RAGNAR, I'd say that like a lot of things in life, how much you enjoy it comes down to who you are with. We had a fantastic group - nothing but good times for two days. Thank god for 15 passenger vans, finishing an hour under the projected time, and a beer tent at the end.
The aftermath...
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