R-R-R-Ragnar

So I'm a little late with this one.

Or maybe a lot late.

I ran a relay race in late September.

It started at the Golden Gate Bridge and ended in wine country with some beautiful country between. Our team consisted of twelve girls, each running three different legs over the course of roughly thirty-six hours. I was runner #9, which put me in the second van (or team, I should say, since I really spent all my time with these five gals) and gave me late afternoon and middle-of-the-night runs. The other team had morning and evening runs.



All twelve of us at the finish line.
Notice Laura's wings (bottom front).  Our team name = Victorious Secrets.







Van 2: Sarah, Whitney, Heidi, Lindsey, me, and Laura






Laura's race car, aka my home on wheels for two days, decked out with a pink feather boa

 

Training started strong and ended, well, less than strong. Summer always seems an ideal time to train, but the end of the summer brought a slew of vacations, the beginning of a new school year, and a nasty chest cough/sickness that put a real wrench in the most critical weeks of my training. I definitely went in a little nervous about my readiness.

Another tricky part of those last few weeks before the race came in the form of changing leg distances. The Ragnar people kept emailing us with "newly-adjusted race legs," which meant that the three-mile, third leg you thought you were running had magically changed to a seven-mile leg. (Yes, that happened to me, a lovely two weeks before the race.) Therefore, what you trained for all summer didn't necessarily coorelate with what you ended up running.

My first leg should have been my most cake leg of the race: four in the afternoon, a little downhill action through GOR-geous Lucas Valley (think rustic ranches and redwoods), a lot of shade.  The unforeseen drawback came in the form of my achey breaky knee, which tugged the whole four miles, making me wish I'd worn the little just-in-case kneebrace I'd picked up at Target.  I wore it for the next two legs and didn't have a problem.




Just about to run leg #1.  I know you're diggin' on our team's pink sweatbands.

 Oh, wait. Did I mention what preceded this first leg of mine? Well, I don't really want to, but I also don't want to forget the hilarity of the whole situation, so here goes.  I'm not sure who does this, but I somehow managed to FORGET MY SHOES, the most basic tool you need to run a race.  I think I'd been so concerned with not forgetting all the other stuff that I figured I'd throw my shoes in last.  Big oops.

When did I realize it?  Less than an hour before I had to run my leg.  Where were we?  Up in some tiny town near Mill Valley, in Marin County. The only other person to share my footsize had to be Laura, the girl currently running her leg. Crisis! By some miracle we found a shoe store, bought shoes, and had me at that exchange in time to meet Laura, who had just chugged up the world's biggest hill and lived to tell about it.




Crisis successfully averted.  Waiting at my first exchange with Lindsey and Sarah. 

 My second leg had originally been my biggest worry (before they tacked four miles onto my last leg, that is).  I am and never have been a wee hours kinda gal, so the thought of being awake and running four miles at 2am scared me like no other.  Oddly enough, this ended up being my fastest and favorite leg of the whole trip.  Yes, it was dark.  Yes, it was annoying to wear a gigantic yellow safety vest, a headlamp, and a buttlamp while running.  Those things couldn't make up for the beautifully cool temperatures, or the quiet solitutude of empty streets, or knowing my team would be waiting for me at the end of every quarter-mile. 



No night run shots, but here are some reflectors at our post-race, celebratory meal.



Leg 3 makes me cringe just thinking about it.  Pretty much hell and back.  Seven miles of pure, hot,  pavement with direct sunlight pounding down on me the whole way.  I knew the heat would be bad, I knew the distance would be bad, but I didn't realize how bad those two could be when combined with utter physical and mental fatigue.  Having been awake for thirty-six hours and having run two times already took its toll about two miles into that run.  Not good.

What a shame, too, because the scenery could not have been prettier.  (At one point, I tried to imagine I was there with Stephen for the weekend.) Wine country vineyards lined both sides of the road, and if I hadn't been falling apart inside I'm sure I would have appreciated it more.  I must have considered just sitting down to cry and quit about five-hundred times over the course of those five miles.  The girls checked up on me with water and pep talks, but all I could see or feel was my misery. 

To make matters worse, two of my toes throbbed the whole run (new shoes & hot, swollen feet), whose toenails later fell off altogether, only adding to my mounting physical and mental exhaustion.  Honestly, it was right up there with natural childbirth.  The ONLY bright spot of that run came right as I was about to give up and just walk, when lo and behold, van 2--who we hardly got to see--drives by and honks.  Our whole team would be together at the end of my run!  That one hope carried me through that last, longest mile I've ever run. 
p.s. The whole time I kept thinking how much harder this relay race had been than the half-marathon I'd run three or four years ago. 



Gratefully stretching--rather than running--my butt after the toughest run of my life

 


Almost there!  Sarah, our rockstar anchor, waiting to run the last leg of the whole race.

 




We did it!  We ran 180-something miles.

 Best part = being on a team.  Training together, supporting each other and being supported on our individual runs, chatting, laughing, making memories and misakes together, and the overwhelming sense of accomplishment I felt at the end of the experience.