Ragnar Team Movie Short

John Stewart and I were talking tonight and John mentioned it might be fun to make a movie of our Ragnar experience.  Many of us have seen different versions of Ragnar movie shorts from the Incredibles to the one that included the team signing a song in their vans with other random shots of race activity.  Many of you may also know that Ragnar sponsors a movie short competition that includes a grand prize of a free team registration to any future Ragnar.  We have some creative people on our team, so this could be fun and could potentially be profitable.  At a minimum it could be a fun way to remember our experience.  Thoughts?  Ideas?

Race Start Changed to 7:15 & Road Rations

Ragnar sent an email saying our start time has changed 
They changed our start time to 7:15am. I am going to change the prior timeline summary post by moving up everything by 30 minutes. 

Ragnar also notified us of an option to have food delivered to us at the starting line.
The company is called "Road Rations". If you click on the link, you will be taken to an overview of what they have to offer.  The meals are supposed to be the perfect nutrition and calories needed for a relay race.  There are essentially three options.  We have to order by team, so if anyone is interested, please let me know by April 2nd.

HungerBlast was developed with you in mind, by a leading chef and acclaimed kinesiologist.  This meal pack sees you through the entire race from early Day 1 with five nutritionally balanced, calorically sound, tongue-teasing selection of meals and snacks is hygienically packaged to maintain freshness; easy to store, transport and consume – even in the confines of a crowded van!  Two breakfasts, two lunches, one dinner, and mucho munchies.  Total calorie count 4690. Price $115

UltraMiler ÜberMeal is like a prix fixe feast specially modified for the über runner. Complete nutrition to see  you through dinner Day One to lunch Day Two, in a three-meal combo power packed for endurance and performance. One dinner, one breakfast, one lunch, loads of convenience. Total calorie count 3055. Price $80.

Midnight Salvation When the diners are closed and you’re staring in a gas station at a stack of corn nuts and L’il Debbies, you’ll wish you had this grab bag of nutritious, portion-correct, REAL foods to satisfy your hunger and fuel your aching body. One dinner, one breakfast, and a bundle of hearty snacks.  Total calorie count 2130. Price $40

Tag along

Both groups are renting 15 passenger vans.  We have one and potentially two interested parties who would like to join us for the race as an alternate runner/driver/safety officer.  Mike Adams schedule may allow him to join us after all and I am sure Amy would approve of that.  Tiffany Pratt wants to join us to check out what all this Ragnar stuff is all about.  Right now we have 7 people in each van, if we added Mike to Van 2 and Tiffany to Van 1, we would both have 8 in each van.  That could work.  Let me know your thoughts.

Summary of Ragnar Pre-meeting

UPDATED BASED ON NEW START TIME

Not everyone was there on Friday for our meeting so I thought it would be good to summarize the discussion.
At check in we need the following: 2 headlamps, 2 blinking rear lights, and six reflector safety vests.
LIGHTS
Van 1 has headlamps between Tom, Trevor, and Michael.  Trevor and Micheal also have rear lights.  That means Van 1 has all the lights needed.
Van 2 has headlamps between the Sloan's, Gredings and Amy.  James also has two rear blinking lights.  Van 2 has all the lights needed.
VESTS
Dave has five or six vests.  These vests will be taken to the Wrights the night before the race so that Van 1 can use them to check in.  Trevor and Michael both have their own light weight reflector vests that they said can be shared.  More than likely these vests will be worn more often in Van 1 than the ones Dave has, but we still need to check in with six.  James also has a light weight reflector vest that can be shared within Van 2.
High level timeline
Although this is already detailed on Tom's spreadsheet, here is a quick summary of the itinerary.
Van 1 
April 14th, Chad and Laura to pick up Van & Dave take vests to Wrights.

1. April 15th, 4:30am-All van 1 participants meet at Wrights to depart to starting line in Huntington Beach.
2. 6:30am-arrive at Huntington Beach for start of race and safety briefing.
3. 7:15am-Nikki starts the race.  GO NIKKI!
4. 11:00am (approximate)-Laura completes her first run @ Exchange 6: City of Anaheim Softball fields and Van 1 can rest.  Currently, there is no rest stop arranged after this first set of legs.
5. 5:00pm (approximate)-Nikki begins her second leg at Exchange 12-Lake Elsinore Campground.
6. 10:30pm (approximate)-Laura completes her second run @ Exchange 18: Johnson Field in Fallbrook.  Shower, crash, etc at John Stewart's aunt in Carlsbad.
7. April 16th, 3:30am (approximate)-Nikki begins her final leg @ Exchange 24-Taylor Made Golf in Carlsbad, CA. 
8. 8:00am (approximate)-Laura completes her final run @ Exchange 30-Torrey Pines, La Jolla, then rest, shower, etc at Nikki's mom's house.
9. 2:30pm (approximate)-Wade leads the entire team across the finish line @ Exchange 36-Silver Strand State Beach Park, Coronado

Van 2

1. April 15th, 7:00am-James and AnneMarie depart Moorpark to pick up van.
2. 7:45am-Rest of Van 2 departs Moorpark.
3. 9:15am-Van 2 meets/departs Executive Van Rentals 9142 S. Sepulveda Blvd Los Angeles 310-338-9788
4. 10:15am (approximate)-Van 2 arrives @ Exchange 6: City of Anaheim Softball fields for safety briefing.
5. 11:00am (approximate)-Dave starts his first run @ Exchange 6: City of Anaheim Softball fields.
6. 5:00pm (approximate)-Wade ends his first run at Exchange 12-Lake Elsinore Campground.  Van 2 rest, shower, etc at Tom's cousin's house:  Sarah and Rex Warner (39855 South Creek Circle, Murrieta, CA 92563)
7. 10:30pm (approximate)-Dave starts his second run @ Exchange 18: Johnson Field in Fallbrook. 
8. 3:00am (approximate)-Wade finishes his second leg @ Exchange 24-Taylor Made Golf in Carlsbad, CA. Van 2 rests, showers, etc at Amy's sister's house Carol Waddell 4555 sunset Bluffs Way San Diego, CA 92130
9. 8:00am (approximate)-Dave starts his final run @ Exchange 30-Torrey Pines, La Jolla.
10. 2:30pm (approximate)-Wade leads the entire team across the finish line @ Exchange 36-Silver Strand State Beach Park, Coronado

Accompanying with Bike
We never did discuss the possibility of accompanying some of our female runners with a bike at night.  Those would be the following: Laura 10:30pm, Amy 12:50am, Rebecca 1:12am, AnneMarie 2:13am, and Nikki 3:58am.  We'll need a mountain bike and a bike rack from someone.  Last year we used mine, but I can't do that very easily this year.

Executive decision

Tom and Michael,
I swapped your legs.
James

Agoura Great Race

Who is running Agoura and what are you running? Chesebro half has been combined with the Pacific half. Rebecca is running the 10K and I am running the half.

Leg Distance Changes

Not sure if you all noticed, but there have been some minor changes to the legs.  Legs, 14, 23, 24, 27, 28, 31 and 32 all changed.  Here is a breakdown:

• Leg 14 (John) increased 0.1 miles
• Leg 23 (AnneMarie) decreased 0.3 miles
• Leg 24 (Wade) decreased 0.8 miles
• Leg 27 (Trevor) decreased 0.3 miles
• Leg 28 (Michael) increased 0.2 miles
• Leg 31 (Dave) increased 0.5 miles
• Leg 32 (James) increased 0.6 miles

I added up the changes by van and noticed that the van totals haven't changed at all and the course total hasn't changed.  It all nets to zero.  Dave, who had the longest set of legs, now has an even longer set.  His total is 25.2 miles.  I updated the spreadsheet.  The leg chart highlights all changes made and there are comments also noting the changes.
Here is a summary of the latest running totals by person.

1. Nikki 15.7 miles
2. John 21.8 miles
3. Trevor 13.8 miles
4. Michael 15.6 miles
5. Tom 13.1 miles
6. Laura 12.4 miles
7. Dave 25.2 miles
8. James 17.8 miles
9. Amy 16.7 miles
10. Rebecca 15.7 miles
11. AnneMarie 12.3 miles
12. Wade 21.0 miles

Friday nite (the 25th) pasta dinner/Ragnar planning meeting

Ok, so I'm hosting the little dinner get-together so we can have a chance to work the bugs out of our race plans. It'll be the night before the Agoura great race (which I know a bunch of us are involved in). 6:00, or 6:30? I'm not sure what time you guys get home from work. Address: 4234 Dakota Dr. I'd love to get a head count, so please chime in if you are planning on coming. I'll provide the pasta and sauce. Would anyone like to bring side dishes/bread/dessert? Thanks!

Good news Van 1

I talked to my mom and she's cool with us going to her house in San Diego after our last leg so we can chill and shower and be fresh at the finish line! The only problem.... they only have one shower I'm going to ease into her asking her neighbor down the street if we could crash her bathroom too. I learned that you shouldn't judge how people might react when you ask them something based on past experiences, they might surprise you, as my mom definately surprised me. She was really cool about the whole thing!

Pit Stops for Van 2

Ok Van 2 we have a pit stop all lined up at my sister's house in North San Diego. She lives about 5-10 minutes away from the Torrey Pines Exchange point so we will be going there after Exchange point 24, showering and resting until we head over to the Torrey Pines Exchange.
Does anyone else in Van 2 have a hookup for us after our first major exchange? My sister's house will be after our second major exchange and we all know that I don't want to be with your stinky bodies for that long. :) Ha

T-shirt order

OK, here is what I think I am going to order.  I'll plan on making the order tomorrow.

Black shirts.  All are technical short sleeve shirts.  These will make nice workout t-shirts.

-1 X-large Sport-Tek® - Ultimate Performance Crew. ST700. (Jason)

-1 large, one Sport-Tek® PosiCharge Mesh™ Reversible Tank. T550 (Michael)

-5 large Sport-Tek® - Ultimate Performance Crew. ST700. (Dave, Wade, John, Chad and Tom)

-1 medium Dri-Mesh® Ladies V-Neck T-Shirt. L468V (Laura)

-3 Medium Sport-Tek® - Ultimate Performance Crew. ST700 (Amy, Trevor, James)

-3 small Sport-Tek® Ladies Dry Zone™ Raglan Accent T-Shirt. (Nikki, AnneMarie and Rebecca)

Dole sponsorship

Looks like I might be able to pull off a Dole sponsorship after all. Wahoo.
I'll ask for 14 shirts, one for everyone, plus one for each driver.
I assume small tank for Rebecca and AMS.
Medium regular style shirt for Amy.
Large regular style shirt for Wade, Dave and Chad.
XL regular style for Jason. Dave double check with Jason for me.

Danielle chooses prom over Ragnar

Danielle was asked to the Monterey Mormon prom by a cute priest in another ward. She has decided to forego her Ragnar experience this year, since Danielle and I are doing the Hood to Coast later this year together anyway. AnneMarie will take her place. I told AnneMarie that Jason is willing to replace her or even split her legs with her.

T-shirt update

I received a quote for t-shirts.  It wasn't acceptable--an average of $50 per shirt.  I'm getting another quote from the same company we used last year.  I thought I would get a better rate through the company that does Dole merchandise.  Not so.  I'll keep you all posted.

Start Time 7:45am

We have our assigned start time.  We were given 7:45, 8:00 and 8:15 as our three options last week.  I picked them in that order as well.

Van #1 will start at 7:45am with Nikki and Van #2 is estimated to start about 11:30am, Friday, April 15th with a pass of the baton from Tom to Dave.  If everything goes as planned, we will run across the finish line with Wade leading us at about 3pm, Saturday, April 16th.

We have a new team member (sort of).  Instead of Mike Adams driving Van #2, we will be chauffeured by Jason Clinton.  Mike can't get off work.  Don't worry Amy, we'll cheer for you and protect you from any sweaty bodies.  We know that totally grosses you out.

I have one reflective vest that I purchased and a headlamp (the kind like the Adams with the sting instead of cloth band) and blinking rear lamp.  Trevor and Michael were going to see if they could get us more reflective vests.  The Gredings had mentioned they might have some blinking rear lamps.
I should have an estimate of t-shirt costs tomorrow.

The Great Race is right around the corner.  Super Kudos to Laura who ran 13 miles on Saturday.  Her first time ever running that distance.  Hooray for her.
James

RoadID

Hey, I just got one of these and they gave me a link to give out for anyone that wants a buck off of one for themselves.

http://www.RoadID.com/?CID=ThanksJohn4932892

Coupon Number: ThanksJohn4932892

John Stewart

Visual Effects Artist

c. 805.338.5211

e. john@stewartvfx.com

T-shirts

Last year we all had t-shirts for the race. I don't think any of us ran with the t-shirt itself.  I have contacted a vendor that can do dry fit or regular cotton and about any type of t-shirt we want.

Attached is the graphics of what our t-shirts looked like last year.  Well, sort of, out t-shirts didn't have orange graphics, but ours were black. 

In order for me to figure out how many t-shirts and what type of t-shirts we should order, please send me your request.  This isn't a commitment yet.  Once I have an idea of what we might want to order, I'll get some pricing.  Once I have our first request, I will get some pricing.

Here are some options to consider.

• Type of t-shirt techical (dry-fit) or cotton
• Size of t-shirt
• Style of t-shirt (man beater tank, regular, long-sleeve or otherwise)
• Number of t-shirts

Let me know soon so I can start talking with the vendor and get things now.

James