Ragnar Chicago 2015

Oh what an experience.....Here is my account (please know that this is my account.   Others may have an entirely different experience,)

(Caption - Tiffany, Anne, and Crystal walking to team check-in)

The day began bright and early.  My alarm was set at home for 2 am so that I could leave my house by 3 am to arrive at Crystal's in Verona by 4:30.  By the time I returned home with no sleep in between it had been 41 hours of elapsed time.  Not sure how I did that and I would not encourage anyone to do that to themselves.  We packed up the 2 vans a Crystal's house and headed to Warner Park in Madison.  Our team check in was 5:30 am.   It was a little bit rainy but nothing too extreme.  We hoped that the rain would move through quickly and we'd have a sunny run from Madison to Chicago.   Unfortunately that is not the way things went.

(Van 1 at Team Check In)

After we had picked up the flags and race necessities, our team had to watch a little safety video and then we picked up a few different things from other tents (garbage bags, recycle bags, shower wipes, energy chews, etc.)

We saw some fun running costumes along the way.  These were some at the start but I have to say that I liked the group that had a rocker like Van Halen.   I'm not sure if he was ever a runner or if he was simply a driver....

The video we watched was pretty cheesy but I'm sure that's part of the way that Ragnar insures that all teams watch it.

Our team number definitely allowed for some giggles.  Once we had watched the video and picked up all our goodies from the start line we had some time to wait before Dustin would be starting Leg 1.  We headed back to the van.  The rain continued to come down but I was still optimistic that it would all be done by 6:30....

(Dustin before any running)

As we headed out to send Dustin off, the rain was coming down pretty hard.

Dustin was ready for it!

Our team was excited to cheer Team Fired Up on as this crazy relay began.  By 6:30 am, Dustin was off in the rain on his way to meet us at Exchange 1 in Olbrich Park (still in Madison).  His entire 6 miles were in the rain...

 The day was still young and we had a lot of miles to cover to make our 196.5 miles journey to the beach in Chicago but we were going to get there!

Before any running

After Leg 1 - 9.9 miles

It was STILL early.

My first leg was 9.9 miles.  I was REALLY worried about meeting my own time expectations with this leg.  It was a LONG leg.  When we registered we had to put in our 10K time.  That is only 6.2 miles.  RAGNAR then gave an estimate of times based on that....  I can't run 10 miles at the same pace as I run 6.   I was worried about letting my team down and disappointing myself.  It was especially scary since this was the first leg of 4 that I was going to run.

I was able to finish in just under and 1 hour and 28 minutes with an average pace of 8:46.  I was REALLY HAPPY with that.    I felt good the whole way and was able to pass about 7 people.  It really surprised me to see people walking so early in the journey but to each their own.  There was only 1 little spot along the trail where I wasn't sure which way to turn.  Other than that, the trail was marked well and I enjoyed this leg!

We took a break after Van 1 finished our first legs.  37.1 miles were complete.  Lunch was served at Olive Garden!    Next stop was to meet up with Van 2 when Nikki would pass the wristband back to Dustin. 

 I'll have more details later.  Have you ever done a similar relay run?   What did you think when it was all over?  Did you or would you ever do one again?