I usually hate these Ragnar things but this one was pretty fun. Everybody was trying hard, nobody biffed it, and we won. Who could ask for more? Well wecould have used a 12th team member and because we didn't haveone I had to run 4 legs along with Walter and Steve but I got to run it in at the end and that was totally cool. The first leg was 3.8 downhill, but it was also 4 PM and 90 degrees. We were near the front of the pro wave and I tried to catch the Google guy. I was gaining on him for the first two miles but then the heat got to me and I had to back off. Didn't lose much though, 5:17 average pace.
The second leg was at 11 PM and it was still pretty hot, in the high 70s. I got to run through 7 miles of the industrial wasteland of NW Portland. Joy. The third leg at 6 AM was much nicer though, it was 4 miles in the country, not a single McDonalds in sight. Everybody was pretty tired by then and we all agreed that nobody cared about the 4th leg but we just aren't wired that way so we all ended up putting a lot of effort into it. I started out slow on mine but it had another cool hill and at the bottom the van pulled up. The guys said that if I could make it to the finish in 22 minutes we would win. My watch said that would require a 7:50 pace or so, and 6:30 was still withing reach. So I reached it and we won by 4 minutes. Gotta love it :)
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