Running from Responsibility: February 2011

Ok, so it's no secret that I love Ragnar! I'm so excited for our race, which is now less than 7 weeks away. I just looked back at my blog post about Ragnar 2010 and thought I'd share it here. Warning - it's long and a little emotional. Good times.

Written April 2010
By Rebecca

I'm finding it hard to put this year's Ragnar experience into words. I am very emotionally attached. Did you know you could be emotionally attached to a race? This was my baby. I put hours and hours over the past five or six months into planning and organizing and the end result was a crazy fun adventure with some pretty awesome people. Each person contributed something that helped make my job easier and/or made the race a party on wheels! It really takes a full team effort to run those 200 miles.

The thing about Ragnar is, while you're there you wonder why you're doing this; when it's over you can't wait to do it again. Somehow the memory of Ragnar is all about the fun and the adventure and the friendship, while the painful sleep deprivation and body aches seem insignificant. The mental hurdles that seemed so impossible in the moment are now little check marks. We did it. And we liked it. And we want to do it again. (Kind of like having a baby.)

Running from Responsibility Van 1 started in Ventura at 7:00am. After all the anticipation, it was thrilling to see Tracy start! The next few hours were busy and fast - kids off to school, buy groceries, pack, give Grandma Greding last minute instructions and kiss the little ones good bye! When it was time for Van 2 (the Greding mini-van) to pick up all the Van 2 runners, it wouldn't start. Of course! Apparently we had killed the battery by leaving the doors open while packing. Cue the jumper cables and we were on our way.

Here's my Van 2 peeps. From left to right is me (Runner 7), David (Runner 8), Jason (Runner 10), Merideth (Runner 12), Wade (Runner 9) and Victor (Runner 11). This picture was taken post-Ragnar as none of us ever thought to take a Van 2 picture during the actual race. Oops.

The first major exchange (where Van 1 and Van 2 meet) was right here in Moorpark. Love that! And I was the first runner in Van 2 so I got to run from Moorpark to Simi Valley. When James, Runner 6 from Van 1, finished his 9.9 miler from Camarillo and slapped the "baton" bracelet on my wrist, I wanted to hug him! He took the longest leg and he looked awesome coming in. I did not hug him, just started running. It was HOT at 1:00pm and there's not much shade or much to look at along Tierra Rejada. It was only 5.3 miles, my shortest leg, but the heat made it hard. My team drove by me at about halfway and cheered me on. Thrilling. I waved and yelled back. When I finally reached the exchange, I was so happy and excited to see my team waiting there for me I waved and yelled as I ran in and then kissed my teammate on the lips! Good thing it was David, waiting there at Exchange 7. Everyone standing around "Awwwww"ed at our little moment. I believe it was also at this exchange that someone yelled, "Get a room!" Yes, we're adorable.

The guys rocked some pretty difficult legs from there through Calabasas. So glad my run was relatively flat.

Here is David and me (and Danielle, our youngest teammate) at Exchange 12, waiting for Merideth. The sun is about to set and Van 2 is off to Corner Bakery for dinner and then to Liz's apartment in Santa Monica to try to get some sleep.

Try being the key word here. Sleep did not come easily and it was too short to help much anyway. I slept for about 1.5 hours. The shower I took first was more restful than the sleep. When James called to get us up and moving, I wanted to cry or throw up or both.

Once we were back in the van though, I felt much better. As we arrived at Exchange 18 Jason, from the back seat, asked the parking lot lady, "Are we in first place?" In our sleep deprived state of mind, his question was the most hilarious thing any of us had ever heard. I've laughed about it a thousand times since then. From that point on, basically everything anyone said was so funny. Like children, we amused ourselves with hilarious topics like poop. WTP?! We had officially lost touch with reality, just in time for my next run.

This was the leg I'd been most excited about. Seven miles on Venice beach at 1:00am! And bonus: my awesome husband biked the whole distance with me. There were some shady characters hanging out on the route, so I was really happy to have him near. We made one wrong turn, which added a little to my total mileage, but not too bad. The weather was perfect, the moon was bright, David was with me and I was high on adrenaline and caffeine! It was the best run of my entire running career. Just before the exchange, David biked ahead of me and got set to start his run along the beach. I came in smiling and cheering, kissed David and cheered him on, high fived my team and we took off again for the next exchange. Meanwhile, David ran his favorite run of his career - 5.8 miles at a 7:53 pace. He is amazing.

The funniest memory from this race is the incident at exchange 21. Jason was asleep in the backseat as Wade ran his leg along the beach. It was time for Jason to get ready to go but he wasn't moving. It took five minutes for us to get him out of the van. Then he was in such a daze that he couldn't get himself ready to go. We literally had to dress him for his run. Merideth took his sweatshirt, I put his reflective vest on and velcroed it while David strapped on his number and headlamp. We walked him down the hill that he would soon run up, to the exchange point. Halfway down the hill he asked if there was a bathroom. We didn't see one, so we told him no. He stopped, like he couldn't decide what to do. He finally reached the bottom just in time to meet Wade. Up the hill he went, and straight into the porta potty at the top! Soon enough he was on his way. The whole process felt like getting a six year old ready for school on time!

After our second runs were all complete, we crashed at Amy's mom's house. Well, most of us crashed. I never fell asleep. I was sick to my stomach, overtired and anxious and probably still amped from my caffeine OD. I didn't feel well again until I started running my third leg. It was the hardest 6.1 miles ever. It felt endless! My right knee starting aching and my energy was gone. I thought if something happened, like if I fell or made a wrong turn, I wouldn't have the mental strength to start again. Luckily, I ran without incident to the exchange, this time without arms in the air or cheering. I kissed David and tried not to cry. It felt so good to be done.

David is amazing. He's an awesome runner and he looks so good while doing it. :) His third run was long and the morning sun was hot, but he killed it.

My proudest moment for sure was Merideth running the final leg of the race. Merideth has been my training partner for the past several months. She's a new runner and hasn't trained very much on hills or for long distances. She was worried all along about her final leg, 5.5 miles to Dana Point. She had the option to let Wade finish her leg for her, but she powered through. I was so proud! She had to fight for that leg. It was HARD. Like really hard.

We all got to run the last half mile together as a team. Here's Running from Responsibility running down to the beach! We made it!

So happy we did it together!

What great timing! Liz's team, Turtle Power, finished around the same time as our team. I seriously love my sister, and I love that we race together so often.

Running from Responsibility . . . Wade, Merideth, Jason, Mike, Amy, Rebecca, David, Heather, Tracy, Victor, Danielle and James.

We rock! 200 miles in 32 hours and 55 minutes.

I'll leave the really mushy stuff to my journal, but special thanks to David, my best support in every way; David and Mike for doing most of the driving; James, our coach, our logistics guy, our stats guy, the only one who cares about those stats as much as I do (and maybe a little more); Merideth for getting me out of bed to run on countless mornings; Wade for his entertaining sarcasm; Amy, for being my personal therapist and constant friend; Jason for being hilarious at all hours of the day and night; Victor for the vests, the shirts and for saving our runner on Leg 33.

Guess it wasn't so hard to find the words afterall. :)

The course has changed. This is probably the last big change so we can solidify legs based on this. However, it is likely there will be minor changes later that most likely won't require a rearrangement of our runners. I swapped some runners in Van 2. Call me or post if you disagree. John are you still ok with the long distance in Van 1? If not, we may need someone else to swap with John.
Here is a brief description of the distance changes.
Runner 1 (Nikki) distance decreased 1.5 miles to 15.7
Runner 2 (John) distance increased 0.6 miles to 21.2
Runner 3 (Trevor) distance increased 0.7 miles to 14.1
Runner 4 (Michael) distance increased 1.6 miles to 15.4
Runner 5 (Tom) distance decreased 1.7 miles to 13.1
Runner 6 (Laura) distance decreased 0.7 miles to 12.4

Runner 7 (Dave) distance increased 4.3 miles to 24.7
Runner 8 (James) distance decreased 1.9 miles to 17.2
Runner 9 (Amy) distance decreased 1.1 miles to 16.7
Runner 10 (Rebecca) distance increased 0.4 miles to 15.7
Runner 11 (Danielle) distance decreased 6.0 miles to 12.6
Runner 12 (Wade) distance increased 4.3 miles to 21.8

Here are the paces I have listed in Ragnar. Please make sure you update it, if it is wrong we need it changed no later than Monday. They are posting our three start times Friday, March 4th.
Nikki-9:30 pace
John-8:45 pace (this may be too aggressive for Ragnar)
Trevor-8:45 pace (you've done Ragnar before, so you would know your pace)
Michael-9:30 pace (you've done Ragnar before, so you would know your pace)
Tom-9:45 pace
Laura-10:15 pace
Dave-10:00 pace (you're dogging it, I think 9:00 should be more accurate)
James-9:00 pace
Amy-8:30 pace (you may want to make it 9:00, just to be conservative. I'm doing that.)
Rebecca-10:00 pace
Danielle-10:00 pace
Wade-9:00 pace

Running from Responsibility

Monday, February 28, 2011

Ragnar 2010

Thursday, February 24, 2011

.GPX file for GPS

New legs posted. Need to verify pace.