Great River Ragnar Relay 2010

The Great River Ragnar Relay: Run. Drive. Sleep? Repeat. Yep, that pretty much sums it up. On Friday, my team of twelve runners (see us here) set out on a 193-mile relay that took us from Winona, MN, up to Stillwater, and then over to Minneapolis. Crazy? Yeah. But also ridiculously awesome and fun.
Although the teams consist of twelve runners, they’re broken down into two vans, so that while your six teammates in the other van are running, you get a chance to rest. And although I imagine being trapped in that van for the rest of my life as some sort of horrible, mobile purgatory, I couldn’t have been happier with my van-mates; we had a great time.
Everybody runs three legs of the relay, and each leg varies in length and difficulty. I was very lucky in that I didn’t have to tackle any monstrous hills, but I wouldn’t hesitate to say that my first run, a seven-miler that began just before 4:00pm, was the toughest run I’ve ever finished. Here I am receiving the slap-bracelet ‘baton’ from my teammate, totally unaware of how miserable I’m about to become. See, it wasn’t the furthest I’ve ever gone, and it definitely wasn’t the hilliest course I’ve ever run, but the sun. The sun! There was not a leaf’s worth of shade on that entire stretch of god-forsaken road between Nelson and Pepin, WI.
This run really pushed my limits, and I had to monitor myself very closely, because I could imagine the heat getting the best of me. I walked every time I felt my heart rate get too high, and if it had been a training run instead of a race, I would have quit after just a few miles. But I made it to the next hand-off and managed to surprise myself with the pace, given all the walking I’d resorted to. After two more runners, we had a brief respite in Stockholm, WI, and I waded up to my waist in the Mississippi — bliss.
After that first run, neither of my other two legs seemed particularly bad. I had a 3.7-mile run at about 2:00 in the morning, which was surreal but enjoyable enough. And I finished with a 4.5-mile run on a paved trail in St. Paul. I certainly looked bedraggled afterward, but it wasn’t too bad. At that point, my brain was on stand-by from so little sleep, so I just waded through the miles in a daze.
Our entire team met up at the finishing point in Minneapolis, and when our last runner neared the end, our number was called, and we all ran over the finish line together. It’s crazy to think that our little slap-bracelet baton never stopped moving from Winona to Minneapolis — somebody from our team was always on the go. Even crazier is that we were in that van for just around thirty-six hours (it took us 28:50:00-ish to run the course); it was such an intense experience that it seems like we were together for days. I signed up because I knew I’d be kicking myself if I missed the opportunity, and that’s just how I feel — it was tough, but so, so worth it!