The R Team!: July 2013

Sunday, July 28, 2013

I can talk about Ragnar like it's a distant memory now.

Nils and I were invited to be on a Ragnar team back in November. Sometimes, when you find out about something 7 months in advance, it sounds like a lot of fun. But then as the time draws closer and closer, the more you realize that said thing might actually cause you pain and discomfort and chafing. Lots and lots of chafing.

I'm pretty sure almost everyone knows what Ragnar is, but if you don't, here's a brief synopsis: A 200-mile relay split between 12 runners. The team is divided into 2 vans of 6 people. Each runner runs 3 legs of the relay. Runners 1-6 (van 1) complete their first legs, then hand off to runners 7-12 (van 2), while van 1 rests for a few hours. And so it continues until everyone has run their 3 legs and the race is done. The Wasatch Back Ragnar goes from Logan to Park City and is beautiful.

We had an awesome team of fun, supportive people. When we weren't running, supporting one of our runners, eating, rolling sore muscles, eating Advil like candy, patching up blisters, or crying about being chafed in places that you should never be chafed (wait- was I the only one who did that?), we were laughing our heads off.

Nils was runner 1, so he started us off at 5 a.m. in Logan. His legs were 7.75, 8.2 and 5.something. He did great, but managed to get a triple-deep blister as big as his heel. He didn't get any bloody nipples, though.

I was runner 6. My legs were 6.9 miles, 8.2 miles, and 2.1 miles. My first leg was mostly downhill on a rocky, rocky dirt road. My second leg was a lot harder, being uphill most of the way. The first 5 miles were actually amazing. The terrain was not bad at all and it was really beautiful. After that, however I was kind of a mess. My legs were knotting up and I kept getting a charly horse in my hamstrings. When I only had a mile left, I had to squat down on the road and think about what I was going to do, because I really couldn't move. I had eaten part of a GU a few minutes before, and that kicked in in the knick of time and I felt great running the last mile.

Once I was done with that leg, it was about 10:00 p.m. and time for our van to go sleep. We drove to a high school in Coalville (it's okay, I don't know where that is, either) where we could sleep on wrestling mats on the gym floor. Walking into that gym was one of the strangest things I have seen. I was expecting it to be a party. It was dead silent, with hundreds of people lined up like corpses on the wrestling mats. Everyone was so tired. I was a wreck. I was sick to my stomach and hurt like I have never hurt before. Nils decided to go eat a spaghetti dinner in the cafeteria. He said it was the best food he's ever eaten, but we now know that he was just delirious and starving to death. We got to "sleep" for about 3 hours, and it was time to get up and run again. Since Nils was runner 1, he had to be ready to jump out of the van and start his leg as soon as runner 12 was done. Runner 12 was going a lot faster than we were prepared for, so we were racing to the hand-off location, thinking we were going to miss her. We got there RIGHT as she was finishing. I don't even think we stopped the van before Nils jumped out and was on his way. This was about 3 a.m.

There were about 6 hours in the middle of that night when I was in a bad place. When Nils finished his 3rd leg, I was wrapped in a blanket in the van and looked like an enchilada. I was sleeping like a baby, and Nils recorded the following conversation:

Nils: Katrina, are we going to do Ragnar in 2014 or ever again?

Me: (Not awake) Noooooo. NOOOOOO!!!

Nils: Glad I got this on video.

My last leg was an easy 2 miles through Heber, and I was so happy to be done.

Running Ragnar was way harder than running a half-marathon, in my humble opinion. I was really surprised by that. I stupidly figured it would be no big deal. I think I'm getting old and senile. It took about 36 hours to realize that it was actually a lot of fun and that I would totally do it again. I would just make sure to stock up on a hefty supply of Body Glide next time 'round.