This is the third and final part of my Ragnar Trail Relay race recap. If you missed part two, you can find that HERE. And if you need to start at the beginning, part 1 is HERE. When I last left off, Deb and I were hanging out in our team campsite post-leg 2. It was dawning on all of us that we were not on track to finish by the 6 PM deadline. We knew at 6 PM the event would end and all teams would have to stop if they were not done. We had to do some problem solving to figure out how to match up legs on an ultra team. It’s a bit complicated to explain without a diagram, but it’s much easier for a regular team to “double up” to ensure everyone is running the correct loops in the correct sequence than it was for ultra teams. But we got it figured out and with the blessing of the Ragnar officials (who basically said “I don’t care what you do. You ultra teams are a pain and I’m glad you figured things out so we don’t have to.”) we had a plan in place.

The solution involved Deb and me having to run the first loop of our last leg with runners 1 (during their second loop) on our respective teams, and then our second loop with runners 2 (during their first loop). Runners 4 did the same thing, joining up with runners 2 and then running their final loop solo. I told you it was complicated, but it worked. 🙂 Around 11 AM we headed down to catch runners 1 on their way through the transition tent. They didn’t know about our solution and weren’t going to be expecting us.

Leg 3 – 11:15 AM Saturday morning
Red Loop (5.7 miles), Green Loop (4.6 miles)
Total advertised distance: 10.3 miles
Total actual distance: 10.5 miles

As runners 1 came through the transition area after their first loop, they were very surprised to find Debbie and me waiting for them. I explained what was going on and then the four of us headed out together. I’ll be honest – I had the most fun on this final leg. I was exhausted and sore and ready to be done, but having a larger group to run with was fun. Plus, running is the best way to get to know people.

Early on we got to see my Dad and Robin and Barry again. It was a surprise to see them and it gave me a boost. They heckled us for walking up a hill, but none of us cared. 🙂

The red loop didn’t seem so bad this time. It felt pretty long in the dark during our first leg, but it was definitely quicker in the daylight. We actually finished over 10 minutes faster than the first time, despite taking the time to pose for pictures.

Angela and Jenny (runners 1) were getting more excited as we ran on because their Ragnar was coming to an end. Even though Deb and I still had the green loop to do, I was feeling excited as well. It gave me a big boost to celebrate the end of their run with them. With less than a mile to go, we ran by our support crew again.

We came into transition, dropped off Angela and Jenny, and picked up Amanda and Kim (runners 2). We were headed back out, all excited to get going, when a Ragnar official started yelling at us. Ironically, he was the one who had OK’ed our plan of doubling up. He started yelling at us about having just disqualified our team by doubling up. I was so confused. The six of us descended on him to figure things out. He was frustrated and angry that Deb and I had not checked in before beginning our loop so there would be an official record of what time we started (and so they could calculate our official finishing time). He said we would still receive finisher’s medals, but would not be recognized as official finishers or be up for any awards. He was being very dramatic. All he really needed to make things official was the time that Deb and I had started running. We had that proof on our watches, of course, and we provided him with the information he needed. Once we got things worked out and he was satisfied, we were able to head out. I know he was dealing with a lot and was really stressed because a lot of teams were having to double up (this was the first year for the event, and they were pretty off assigning start times), but I wish he hadn’t been so hateful. As our team headed out to run, I thanked him for his patience and he just looked at me and said okay. At least I tried…

After all of the drama, Deb, Amanda, Kim, and I were happily on our way. Deb’s husband, Bill, was hanging out close to the start acting as official team photographer. He’s an incredible photographer and he got some great photos!

Debbie and I were especially excited to be heading out for the green loop. We were nearly 30 miles in for the weekend, and only had about 5 miles to go on our journey!

We began working our way through the green loop, and were surprised to see my Dad and Robin again. They assured us they were not stalking us and just happened to be out on a walk 🙂

I was feeling a bit impatient during this run, but stayed focused on moving forward. For awhile, our group had a fun train going with an additional fifth member on the back (John? Adam? I can’t remember!!). It felt like we were all helping push each other, and it was fun running in a long line. I was leading, which I was a bit worried about, but everyone seemed fine with the pace I was setting.

We kept chugging along, and finally arrived at the mountain bike mogul things. They were so steep and I actually used my hands to help scramble up the first one. At the top of the third one, we arrived at the coveted ‘one more mile’ sign. My legs were so done and I lost my balance and actually fell off of the trail. I was fine, just a little embarrassed. 😉

At last, we reached the final stretch. Such sweet relief! As we approached the finish line, Debbie said she might cry. As it turned out, she did not… but I did. It only lasted about 10 seconds, but it was a first. This event was so hard at times, and the miles were so drawn out (about 20 hours between when we began our first leg and when we crossed the finish line for the final time). But now we were DONE!

We got changed and started getting packed up. Then, Debbie and I headed down to the Ragnar gear tent to do some shopping. On the way back, we stopped at the one remaining food truck and got some of the best mac and cheese I have ever eaten. I was starving!! It was some kind of pepper jack mac and cheese, with a side of avocado (an awesome suggestion from one of our MRTT teammates). Best thing I have ever eaten.

About two hours later (I really have no idea on this… I had lost all sense of time by this point), it was time to head down to transition area. Our final two runners were due in soon, and our two ultra teams would be joining in behind them to run to the finish. The anticipation was building and finally we saw them headed down the final hill and into the finish chute. We joined in behind them and all crossed the finish line as a team.

After that, we collected our finisher’s medals and got our official team photo. There were hugs, congratulations, and then a flurry of packing up and saying goodbye. A whirlwind end to a whirlwind weekend.

Going into this, I wondered if it would be easier or harder covering roughly the same distance of my 50K spread out. I sincerely believe it was harder. It’s easier to just keep going. Spreading it out and combining it with no sleep made it tough. But we had such an incredible group and that made this such a positive experience. Plus, I can’t help but feel a bit like a badass with our accomplishment. It was a lot of running, and there were times I wasn’t sure I could do it. But I did. We all did. And it was epic.

I’m joining in today with Holly and Tricia for their Weekly Wrap linkup.

Have you ever cried at the finish line?
What’s the best thing you have ever eaten after a race or tough workout?

This is part 2 of 3 of my Ragnar Relay race report series. If you missed my recap of leg one, click HERE.

When I last left off, it was around 11 PM Friday night and I was looking forward to getting at least 4 hours of solid sleep. It was going to be my first time getting some real sleep during a Ragnar event. Unfortunately, I just could not sleep. It was due in part to some guys snoring like crazy in a nearby tent (I could have sworn there was a cougar roaming camp). I also just couldn’t fall asleep, despite feeling tired. But I did at least lay in my tent and rest for a few hours, finally throwing in the towel around 2 AM. After that, I wandered around Ragnar camp for awhile to loosen my stiff legs and keep warm.

Around 2:30 I landed back at our campsite and just hung out there. For a long time I stared at our white board trying to make sense of the times on it and determine when Deb and I would be running again (things always go slower than expected at night, and we were running legs over 10 miles in length). People from our MRTT teams came and went, heading out to run or returning from a run, but no one else was actually up. A lot of people asked if I was alright…. yep, just can’t sleep per usual. Around 3:15 AM I decided I should probably wake Debbie, figuring we would be running in about an hour or so. She was super confused, thinking I was one of our teammates waking her (our original plan was for them to wake her and for her to then come wake me) and she asked me if I had finished running. I wish!

We expected our teammates to come in around 4:30 AM, so Debbie and I headed down a little before that to wait in the transition area. At Ragnar, teams run over a timing mat about a quarter mile out, which lets the next runner know when to enter the transition tent to trade off. We began a vigil that would last nearly 30 minutes (Totally not our team’s fault, they did great. As I mentioned, things are always more slow going at night and it’s hard to guesstimate when to meet your runner).

Leg 2 – 4:55 AM Saturday
Green Loop (4.6 miles), Yellow Loop (6.2 miles)
Total advertised distance: 10.8 miles
Total actual distance: 11.2 miles

After not sleeping a wink and feeling very nauseous after my first leg, I headed out for leg 2 tired and low on fuel. Debbie and I tackled the green loop first – the shortest and easiest of the three loops.

We were quieter than we had been and primarily just focused on moving forward. There was the promise of a sunrise ahead of us and I mostly focused on that. I think we got off easy at Ragnar. Everyone on our two teams had to run two of the loops in the dark. For runners 1, 2, and 4 that happened during one complete leg. But for Debbie and me (runners 3), it was split between two legs. That meant we never had one full leg in the dark.

The green loop felt long in the dark, but we finally made it back to transition with the sun peaking over the horizon. We hit the aid station, I ate a potato with salt (my stomach was still feeling rocky) and Deb and I packed up our headlamps. Then we headed back out for our final time running the longest loop – yellow.

With early morning light shining down on us, Deb and I perked up and were more talkative on this loop. Even though I still didn’t feel great, I was in a good mood and happy to be running through the woods. I knew this loop would be a bit of a grind, but I had daylight on my side and that helped immensely.

I tried to remember to take more photos during this loop since it was our last time running yellow. During our first leg (yellow loop, red loop) I had somehow completely missed the cool totem poles that were at the start of each loop. Don’t know how that happened, but I definitely took notice of them on our second leg. They were cool!

We also paid more attention to our surroundings and found that we could see Ragnar Village as we ran along the yellow loop – also something we hadn’t noticed the day before.

Debbie and I had a great time swapping a lot of fun stories, and I enjoyed getting to know her even better. With about two miles to go on the yellow loop, Deb and I made a friend named Donna. We started running with her and had a great time chatting. It’s always fun getting to know other runners during a race or an event like this.

The three of us stuck together for the rest of the loop and into the transition area. We handed our bibs off, and started to make our way back to camp. I was finally feeling ready to eat, and I ate a bagel with peanut butter and banana. I thought I might nap, but with the sun up and camp coming back to life that definitely wasn’t going to happen. Instead, Deb and I hung out in the campsite with our teammates. As the morning wore on, we became acutely aware of a growing dilemma. It looked like our four teams were not on pace to finish by the 6 PM deadline….

How do you deal with sleep deprivation?

It’s Wednesday and you know what that means – time to join in on another Wednesday Word link up! Each week, Debbie gives us a word prompt to write about. Be sure to click on the button below to join in and to see who else is linking up.

This week’s word is dilemma.

1. A situation requiring a choice between equally undesirable alternatives.
2. Any difficult or perplexing situation or problem.

I’m going to focus on that second definition.

I love a good puzzle, be it a jigsaw puzzle, crossword, or brainteaser. I don’t like having a problem, but I do love problem solving. In my experience, you have to be a good problem solver when running long distances. Things never go exactly how you plan, and you have to be able to figure things out on the fly. Being able to come up with a solution can mean the difference between a successful day and a day that ends in a DNF (did not finish).

We had to do some big time problem solving at Ragnar to ensure we finished on time. Normally, if something happens to delay a Ragnar relay, they will have teams ‘double up’ to ensure they finish before the end of the event. This means if runner 1 and runner 4 both have the red loop left, they run together. We were faced with this dilemma during our Ragnar trail relay in Richmond the weekend before last. Except trying to double up was tricky, because we were on an ultra team. The Ragnar officials were not being very proactive, but we knew we needed to come up with a solution because we were not on track to finish on time. Luckily, despite our sleep-deprived state, we were able to figure things out. Thank goodness, because we definitely would not have finished otherwise!

Are you a good problem solver?

This is going to be part one of three of my Ragnar Relay Richmond recaps. Right after the event I had this wild idea I could just do one post to recap all three runs. But that proved impossible. Instead, as I’ve done in the past, I’m going to do a separate race recap for each leg. Here is my recap of leg 1 as part of the Weekly Wrap link up, hosted by Tricia and Holly!

A little background: I ran Ragnar Richmond on an ultra team. That means we had a team of four instead of the standard team of eight. Each leg consisted of two loops at a time, for a total of about 34 miles per runner over a span of about 20 hours. The Moms Run This Town group I ran with fielded two ultra teams, so we were able to buddy up. Debbie was my buddy for the weekend!

You’ll see a discrepancy between the loop distances provided to us and what our Garmins actually measured. I know that GPS is often very inaccurate on trails. My sole point for sharing Ragnar’s distance and the distance by my watch is that it seemed clear to all of us that the loops were all long.

Leg 1 – 6:30 PM Friday
Yellow Loop (6.2 miles), Red Loop (5.7 miles)
Total advertised distance: 11.9 miles
Total actual distance: 12.4 miles

After staying in the state park the night before with my husband, Barry, and our dogs, Barry drove me over to set up camp with my team on Friday morning. Our teams did not start running until 2 PM and as runners number 3, Deb and I did not have our first run until the evening. I had a great time hanging out in our camping area and getting to know the 23 other ladies there representing MRTT with our group. We definitely had a great group!

It was a long day waiting to run. Finally, 6:30 PM rolled around and it was time to go! I was so excited to finally get out there. Debbie and I headed down to the transition tent to wait. Runners 2 from our respective teams came in and handed off their bibs. The bibs act as the ‘relay baton’ and they get passed from one runner to the next with a belt. We also grabbed yellow slap bracelets, since that was the loop we were running first, and we were off!

The trails were really nice and despite rain earlier in the week, they were in great condition. Definitely not flat, as advertised by Ragnar, but nothing too major. Just continuous rolling hills with a few short, steep ones thrown in. Strangely, about halfway through this loop and very early on in our epic adventure, I had a moment where I didn’t want to be out there doing this. It was very strange and it was totally a mental thing. It didn’t last long, but it did scare me.

Early on, Debbie and I got to run by Barry and the dogs along with my Dad and Robin (who were also there for the weekend to camp and cheer us on), and Deb’s husband Bill. It was about a half mile walk from the campground, so not too hard for our fans to come out and cheer us on. 🙂

Although, Hank had a complete melt down when I ran by and kept going. Scout was mostly clueless, but she had a small freakout, too, feeding off of Hank.

I enjoyed being out exploring the trails, and running with Deb, but to be honest this first loop felt a bit long. Granted, it was the longest of the three loops, but still. We ran by our crew again and had about a mile to go to finish up our first loop.

We arrived back into transition tent with our watches reading long already. Since we were running on an ultra team we still had another loop to do, so we turned in our yellow slap bracelets and picked up red ones and headed back out.

Just past transition there was a porta john and water area for ultra teams to refuel. Deb hit the porta john real quick while I ate some potatoes and salt (yes, I carried that with me after it worked wonders at my 50K). I also got my headlamp out since it was getting dusky and I knew we still had over an hour of running ahead of us. It was now that I started to grasp the magnitude of the challenge we were taking on.

We headed out for the red loop – shorter than the yellow but the most challenging of the three. It took us longer due to the dark. There were also a few rooty and rocky sections that were particularly slow going. I did really enjoy how twisty and turny this loop was. It was neat in the darkness to see the headlamps of other runners going every which way in the woods.

Towards the end of the loop I started having some cramping issues. My quads were doing that wavy “threatening to cramp” thing and my calves were seizing up on me every time we hit an incline. I realized how much fatigue is still lingering from the North Face less than a month ago. I also started to get really worried about not being able to complete this event. I didn’t say anything out loud, but I was having a complete freak out. It also did not help that I had started to feel very nauseous for some reason during the final couple of miles.

We finished up our loop and I was relieved to hand my team’s bib over to runner 4. Deb and I headed out of transition tent and started to make our way back to our campsite. Before we could get there, though, some Ragnar folks approached us and asked me to turn on my headlamp and stare into their camera. Since they caught me off guard, I agreed, and that’s how I ended up in the Ragnar Richmond video. Our team’s campsite can also be seen at 0:22 in the video.

Deb and I finally made it back to our campsite and were happily surprised to find Barry and my dad and Bill all waiting for us. We had to hustle and grab some food with our food tickets before the food trucks left for the night. Then I decided to get changed into dry clothes before eating. While getting changed inside my tent, Barry was standing outside talking to me. It was just the two of us and I was able to voice how I was freaking out. It felt good to say it out loud. Barry reassured me that although I was clearly still fatigued from my 50K, this distance was not new for me. I could do it and I would do it and I would be fine. It was exactly what I needed to hear in that moment.

After that, I hung out in the camping area with everyone and tried to eat, but I was still feeling really nauseous and only managed a couple of bites of my pulled pork sandwich. It was about 11 PM at this point, and I decided to try and grab some sleep before our night leg (which was guesstimated to be around 3:30 AM). I felt so tired I was sure I would conk out and get some actual sleep for the first time at a Ragnar event. Unfortunately, that did not happen….

Can you eat a big meal right after working out?
When was the last time you went camping?
How do you handle a big challenge?

My Nana, who does not use computers, refers to any computer as ‘the Internet box’. Furthermore, she refers to searching for anything on the Internet as using ‘the Google machine’. I always think it’s funny to look at the top search terms that led folks to my blog. Here are the top 10 terms from the past year that people have plugged into the Google machine while using their Internet box:

1. Varmint Half Marathon – Yes, I’ve run that with my husband a few times. Last year, I volunteered instead of running the race. I got to hand out medals at the finish line which was basically my dream volunteer job.
   
2. How do chickens sleep – Like this:
   
3. Hokie Half Marathon 2015 – My little sister and I ran this race together and I had an absolute blast sharing the experience with her as she conquered her FIRST half marathon! She even wrote a guest post to recap her day!
   
4. Turkey Runner – Well that is the name of my blog, but I’m going to go out on a limb and guess they were probably looking for a Turkish runner and not me.
5. Working Bloodhounds trailing line – I’m guessing they were searching for information about what line/leash to use while trailing? The answer: a long one. While we are on the topic, it’s been awhile since we went to a search & rescue training. Unfortunately, it just became too long of a drive and many of the trainings have conflicted with our schedule.
   
6. Green walnut tree that looks like tennis ball – I do not know how you ended up here. Sorry.
7. Hanson marathon training review – I loved Hanson marathon training and I wrote a review on it afterward.
8. Where should roosting pole go in chicken coop – Somewhere elevated, because chickens have a natural instinct to roost high for safety while they sleep. If you don’t make your roosting poles highest, they will roost on whatever is highest. It’s especially important to make sure the nesting boxes (where they lay eggs) are lower than the roosting poles so they don’t sleep in them. Lastly, the roof on the nesting boxes should be sloped so they won’t sleep on top of them.
   

   

9. What to talk about while running with a friend – In my experience a run with a friend is a chance to talk about anything and everything except… running. When you get together for anything other than running then the only thing you talk about is running. #logic
   
10. Do chickens sleep – Yes. See item 2.
    

A pretty interesting mix of search terms this go around. Hopefully some of these folks did, in fact, find what they were looking for. But I fear some did not (I’m looking at you #6).

If you have a blog, do you ever look at the search term stats?