First off, I hope everyone has a great holiday weekend, and a happy and safe Fourth of July!

This is a recap of my final leg from the Ragnar Trail Appalachians relay in West Virginia. If you missed my recap of leg 2, click HERE.

Leg 3: Green loop, 3.5 miles, 8:45 AM Saturday morning, nicknamed “Maple Flat”

After finishing my second leg at Ragnar Trail Appalachians, I made my way back to our team area. They were in the midst of a discussion about getting approval to double up so that our team could finish before the cut off time (either 4 or 6 PM, not sure on that). Gayle, our fearless team leader, expertly negotiated our team permission to double up. This would save us time, but they way Ragnar told us to double up, it still didn’t have us finishing until 3 PM or later. We didn’t want to stay that long! So Melissa, our team volunteer and fellow MRTT’er, went back to talk to them again. This time we got permission to triple up and get us all out of there by 1:30 to 2 PM.

That meant that as soon as the runners Tammie and I had just handed off to after our second leg came in, we would be headed back out along with four other teammates. Granted our current runners were out on the red loop, so we did get almost 2 hours rest before heading back out onto the Green Loop.

You will leave the Ragnar Village on a winding and gently rolling single-track trail. This trail sometimes gets rocky, so watch your footing, but don’t forget to look up and enjoy the views. Single track turns into double track for the rest of the loop.  After mile 2, you will cross a small creek and start the slow climb back up to the Ragnar Village. When you start hearing the music know that you are close, this is where all three trails merge and return to the Ragnar Village.

I am glad our final leg was the shortest one, because my legs were very tired at this point. I was also extremely tired from not sleeping at all, and my head felt like it was disconnected from the rest of my body.

It was really fun running as a group of six, though. I bounced around and ran with everyone, and we even had opportunities for selfies!

We ran up a little creek area that I’m not sure was actually a creek before all of the downpours we had throughout the weekend (3-4 in total). But either way, it was pretty!

Some people had said they felt the yellow loop was easiest, but I found the green loop to be the most runnable. Had it not been for the mud and sloppy trail conditions I think we could have flown through this trail, even with the final mile and a half being a gradual uphill.

I had a great time talking with everyone, and before I knew it we passed the ‘one mile to go’ sign for my final time. I was running with Julie, who still had the red loop left after this one, along with Rachel. That must have been so tough for them!

Back up the sloppy shared trail we went – which at this point had completely deteriorated to some kind of swamp. It smelled like one, too!

Finally the bridge came into view and the six of us ran over it together and back into the transition area.

That bridge was slick and covered in mud, and I thought it was really freaky to run over. But for four of us, it was our last ‘official’ trip over the bridge. Thus concluded my Ragnar relay, but our team wasn’t quite done yet. I’ve got one final recap coming up to wrap up our Ragnar weekend and our team’s finish.

Who is racing this weekend?