I ran as a 12 person team of my fraternity brothers, Sigma Chi from Clarkson University. Although we are all brothers, very few of us went to school together, our ages ranged from 44 down to 25. We had very little trouble putting together a team of 12, and we actually had 3 alternates ready to go if anyone got hurt. We registered as a team in March, and began training individually. We set up a group chat on Groupme to encourage each other and post information about different training programs and races we were doing. This was a big motivator for me to keep pushing myself throughout the summer, including running almost every day of our two week vacation in Delaware.
While all of this was going on, we also had a couple group conference calls about logistics and plans for the race. It was probably overkill, but we were very well organized. During the race, you are divided into two different vans.
Runners 1 through 6 are in Van 1 and runners 7-12 are in Van 2. The two vans only meet at major exchanges (6, 12, 18, 24, and 30) so it was important that each van was self sufficient, so we also had a conference call with just Van 1, which I was a part of, as runner 3. We also set up a schedule and rotation for driving. Each van is required to have a safety officer, so our rotation was Driver, Safety Officer, Preparing Runner, Runner, Recovering Runner 1, and Recovering Runner 2. This helped in the middle of the night when everyone was just on auto-pilot from lack of sleep. Van 2 in our group had a dedicated driver. Another one of our fraternity brothers took that honor. I am told it really came in handy because he was able to take care of looking at the maps, the GPS, etc. Ragnar is pretty stringent on safety, so they require each person to have a bright safety vest and it was required to be worn anytime you were outside the van between 6 p.m. and 7 a.m. We were also required to have two headlamps and two back lights per van. Anyone running on the course during those night time hours had to have those on, in addition to the vest. We had a few actual running vests and I borrowed a couple construction style vests from work for the people that were not actively running but just out cheering runners on.
Our team consisted of guys from Buffalo to Boston, including 3 local to the Saratoga area and 1 guy that lives in Lake Placid. We converged on Saratoga Springs Thursday night, after stopping at the Albany airport to pick up our two rented 15 passenger vans. (Side note: Many teams did this race with minivans. I have no idea how. We would have preferred Sprinter vans, because you can stand up in them, and two 12 person vans would have been more than sufficient, but we took what was available.) We removed the rearmost seat of both vans for extra storage space and then headed to the start line area to watch the safety video and check in for the race. If not all members of the team are there the night before, this can also be done by showing up an hour before your start time. After we checked in and got all our swag, including Clif bars, shot blocks, and Monster drinks, we headed to another of our brother's houses who graciously offered to cook us dinner and let us hang out as a team before the race. I cannot think of a better way to start that race than the way we did. By this point, we all had butterflies in our stomach knowing what was coming the next day. The guy who fed us is also quite artistic, so we spent the next hour or so in his driveway decorating our vans. We had all the basics, our names, each with three check boxes to check off each of our legs, a space to record kills (every time you pass another runner), and lots of Sigma Chi and Clarkson references. We also left plenty of space for other vans to tag us. I didn't realize how big of a deal that was, other teams had markers, magnets, and all kinds of other ways of marking that they had been at our van. In the future, I would definitely have magnets made up. The downside of having such a local connection to the group is the volunteer situation. Each team that has at least one member living within 150 miles is required to provide 3 volunteers or pay for them. We were only able to come up with 1 volunteer, so we had to pay the difference. I have heard that Ragnar is getting rid of that requirement, but I don't know that for sure. The concept is we pay Ragnar, and Ragnar gets another organization to provide volunteers and they give a donation to their organization.
On to the race itself. We had a 7:15 a.m. start, with about ten or twelve other teams, so we got there around 6:45 for last minute pictures, and so our first runner would have plenty of time to get ready.
There are three different types of Ragnar Legs. Full support means you can pull over anywhere it is safe to do so, get out of the van, help your runner, cheer him on, etc. Limited support means you can pull off the road in a parking lot on the same side of the road as the runner, but the runner has to come to the van. No support means you cannot pull over at anytime during the leg. On these legs, we usually gave our runner a 20-30 minute head start and then drove the same route he was running, so we could get a look at him and give him a friendly honk of the horn. After our first runner took off, we all went into race mode and we headed up the road to find a place to park and cheer for the runners. There were a lot of people on the road at this point, so we were able to cheer for a lot of teams. It came in handy to have a couple guys familiar with the area, and since we were early in the race, we didn't really follow the driving rotation much.
I took a couple shot blocks for the first time ever before my first leg. I was very happy with the result and plan on incorporating them into longer runs and races. As runner 3, I took the slap bracelet from runner 2 just before 9 a.m.
I was reminded about one downside of Ragnar about a half mile into my first leg. None of the roads are closed for this race, and even though it is publicized, runners need to be careful. Pedestrians having the right of way doesn't do you much good in the hospital. I almost got hit by a car coming out of a side street and turning right from the shoulder of the road onto the same street I was running on. The driver didn't look my way until the last second, and at that point he stopped. As luck would have it, my watch quit working on me the morning of the race, so I don't have great data from my run, but I was able to get the finish time from the previous runner and the start time of the next runner to do some rough math and figure out I did the 6.3 miles in around 50 minutes, very close to one of my fastest 10K times ever.
I was absolutely ecstatic after that run, and that is when my new cover photo on Facebook was taken.
I also got a few kills out on the road, and the pre-race jitters were definitely gone.
Major Exchange 6 was at Gavin Park. This is where we handed off the baton to Van 2. This park is only about 2 miles away from one of our teammate's houses, so we took advantage and went back there for a big lunch, figuring we had several hours before we would need to run. We relaxed, took showers, tried to sleep a little bit, relaxed some more, prepped the van for the rest of the race, and even managed to squeeze in some yoga before making the trip to Million Dollar Beach, where we would take over from Van 2, headed toward Ticonderoga. This was about the time we realized we had made a mistake with our pace estimate. We were well ahead of where we thought we would be. We were ~20 minutes ahead of pace after the first 6 legs, and ~40 minutes ahead after 12 legs. We figured we would not be able to keep up the pace, and we kept going without making changes.
Unfortunately, my second leg started a few minutes before 6, so I had to wear the vest and lights, something I have never done while running. I was nervous about it, so I wrapped the headlamp strap around my hand for that run. I also started running with headphones a few weeks ago. This has helped me keep my pace steady during longer runs, but it allowed a few runners to sneak up on me during the race. One in particular was a guy a couple inches taller than me, built like me that passed me about 3/4 of a mile into my second leg. It really took me off guard and I had to resist not chasing him down, because he was moving along. He got about an 1/8 of a mile in front of me and I was trying to keep him within striking distance, but he pulled out to close to a 1/2 mile in front of me. Meanwhile, I was focusing on my form and breathing and trying to maintain a pace that I could reel him in. After another mile or so, I was very close to catching him, but I knew I had a ways to go and I didn't want to go crazy and get passed right back. Next thing I knew, we came up to a water stop (no volunteers, just three jugs of water on a table), and I was just daring him to stop in my head. Sure enough, he pulls up for a drink, and as he is filling his cup, I blew past him. He looked beat, and I knew I had him. After another half mile or so, I couldn't even see him behind me. I finished that 5.8 mile leg in about 45 mins.
After handing off to the other runners, I went behind the van, wiped down as much as possible with baby wipes, and took all my running clothes and put them in a ziploc bag. I had each set of running clothes in their own bag, so after each run, I put the sweaty clothes back in that bag. Then I put the clothes I had worn after my shower back on. I then forced myself to get something to eat. We had Clif Builder Bars that one of the guys got for us, with 20g of protein, I brought apples, trail mix, peanut butter and jelly, and dinner rolls I got from Heidelberg Bakery. There were also bananas, gels, and other snack foods to keep us going. We ended our second set of runs at a school in Ticonderoga a little before 10 p.m. At the school they had a baked ziti dinner for an $8 donation, so we had that and then headed about 2 miles away to a hotel we had booked. Van 2 used the hotel room from when they finished their run until we got to Ticonderoga. According to them, they had about 2 hours to lie down, but hardly anyone was able to sleep, since it was 7 or 7:30 p.m. We had about the same experience. We got to the room around 10:45, got settled (two of us slept in the van), and we set the alarm for 12:45 a.m. so that we could get to the next exchange in time. During this time, we also had some communication with the other van, and there was some concern that we would be late to the exchange. As it turned out, we predicted our time fine and we made it in time to Exchange 24, ready to start our third run.
At this point, our pre-organized driving rotation came in handy. We all knew we had a job to do, and we were encouraging each other, helping to decide what to wear, and get our next runner to the right place. By this point, the temperature was in the low 40s and we were running on little sleep. By this point, we were way in front of the pack and getting close to the point where if we got to a major exchange much earlier, they would hold us and penalize us. We were the 4th or 5th team to arrive at exchange 25, even though there were teams that had started 2 hours in front of us. There were no volunteers near the exchange for the start of my third run, and we had a discussion with another team about which way was the correct way to go. I was exhausted and babbling about the direction of Orion's belt in the sky and we ended up going the wrong way. We ran about a quarter of a mile the wrong way, before we turned around and went the right way. The other guys that got lost with me got in his van and got a ride back to the exchange, I just ran back. it felt pretty good when I passed him about a mile later, even with his head start. This run took me about 45 minutes as well, and I had the greatest runner's high I have ever felt when I finished it.
Again, I wiped down as best as I could, changed all my clothes, and got something to eat. Toward the end of our legs, it was my turn to drive, so I took over after packing my stuff up as much as possible. We headed to Lake Placid to crash for a couple hours at our other teammate's apartment. Again, none of us slept very much or very well, we were so wired, but it was good to relax. A few of us showered, and we headed to the finish line.
Since we were so close to the front, the crowd at the finish was pretty sparse. We celebrated crossing the line together, got a bunch of team pictures, including with the Sigma Chi flag, which our last runner ran his whole last leg with, and had a couple beers at the Sierra Nevada tent.
We dropped the vans off at our hotel just outside Lake Placid, and walked up to Lake Placid Pub and Brewery. We waited a while for a table, drank a lot of pitchers, ate lunch, played some cornhole out front, answered some questions from some other people in the crowd, including a few fellow Clarkson grads, and headed back to the hotel. A few of us got sidetracked on the way to the hotel at Liquids and Solids, where we had another beer and cheered on some more runners still coming in. After making our way back to the hotel, we spent some time in the hot tub and pool, had some more beers, and went out to dinner. I was surprised how late we made it that night, but we were all still wired. Our final time was 27 hours, 38 minutes. We were 30th overall of about 290 teams that finished, and third in our division of Mens Open Regular teams. [The team finished almost 2 hours ahead of their scheduled pacing - which would mean a little more than 30 seconds per mile faster than they thought. With the staggered start and the faster than guessed at pace, they were one of the first several teams to cross the finish line, The final place in the standings is based on your "chip" time and therefore you eventually find out how you did compared to the rest of the field when the results are posted.]
I would highly recommend Ragnar to anyone. The camaraderie, atmosphere, and style of race are unlike anything else I have experienced. The teamwork involved is a whole different twist on running for me. It was a long day, but one of the most rewarding athletic experiences of my adult life. We are already talking about what race we are doing together next.
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1 comment:
Really enjoyed your commentary Adam, a great adventure indeed.Although the logistics seems like a nightmare . Hell of a job!!!!
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