Runners are crazy, there’s no two ways about it. And I can now count myself firmly in the category of “runner.”
Ragnar was amazing, and if you have ever thought about doing a race like this, I highly encourage you. It was a challenge, to be sure, but not an insurmountable one, and I’ll tell you what: by hour 30 and your third running leg, EVERYTHING is hilarious. I haven’t felt that giddy since college when I was… hmm… sleep-deprived and hanging out with a bunch of other sleep-deprived nutjobs. Yeah, Ragnar is basically like college.
Friday morning dawned overcast and cool, perfect running weather. Tony and I were in Van 1, and got to Blaine and decorated our van and began to see that, while we had all dressed up to fit our theme, we were totally outclassed by the really crazy runners.
We ran as nerds, and I got plenty of high-fives for wearing suspenders and a bow tie (I thought the Carl Sagan shirt was pretty nerdy, too, but apparently not so recognizable), but we passed storybook princesses, jail inmates, and this guy wearing nothing but an adult diaper and fairy wings:
And this guy, wearing a spandex Santa suit and crocheted hat (in 90-degree weather):
And a whole lot of other, totally committed, costumed runners.
My runs went really well – even though we didn’t mark “kills” on our van like some of the teams did, I passed a total of 25 people on my three legs. Tony developed plantar fasciitis somewhere along his first leg of 8.3 miles, but toughed it out until the end, and was fine for his later runs.
By the time we met up with Van 2 in Bellingham, it was hot, hot, hot, and we were happy to go home to shower and sleep for awhile.
We picked back up in Burlington at about 8 pm and ran until 1 am, then crashed at one of our runner’s houses in Anacortes for another three hours of sleep. This was lucky for us, as I think Van 2 didn’t sleep AT ALL. Then we ran our third legs really quickly and ended up about 40 minutes ahead of schedule, really screwing Van 2 out of some potential sleep. They were not so pleased by this.
You don’t just run, hand off, run, hand off at Ragnar. You cheer on your runner and the other runners and you blast music and silly string and squirt guns and the more delirious you are, the more fun you have.
And then, as Van 1, you get to the finish line and wait for the rest of your team to complete the last legs of the relay. If you’re Tony, you spray sunscreen on your chest in a haphazard manner and get a really wonky sunburn.
And you spend some of those hours at the end checking out all the other crazy teams: Team Colonel Angus offering mustache rides; the kilted team blasting a bagpipe version of the Star Wars theme from their van; Escape from the 80s featuring a Ghostbuster, Indiana Jones, Richard Simmons; the Gagnam Style dancing team; and so many more.
I’d do it again in a heartbeat. You know an activity was worth the pain when your face is as sore from laughing as your legs are from running.
3 comments:
I can tell you had a blast! Go Nerds!
Love it...
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