I’m still waiting for the “official” pictures from ChelanMan 2011 to come out, so meantime, here’s a quick recap of a running relay I did this past weekend, the Ragnar.
Ragnar is actually a series of races around North America, in a format similar to the Epic Oregon I did last month. I had some gut issue then, and I was determined not to have them this time. So, I hydrated the hell out of myself, had my last meal a solid 6 hours before my first run, and hoped for the best.
Drats. My abs still cramped up right in front and a bit to the right. I now think it’s not food related at all (although that can also cause gut issues in a different place), but something to do with sitting in a car for hours at a time, then jumping out and trying to run. I don’t know yet if it’s muscular weakness, inflexibility, or what, but hopefully as my overall fitness improves the problem will just go away.
In any case, I still had a blast. My average pace improved each leg, even though each one was harder than the last. I got to hang out with some very cool, very smart strangers for 30 hours (I was actually filling in for someone who had to drop out, and thus, didn’t know any of my co-runners until I met them for the drive up!).
I was able to take pictures of some of the exchanges, some of which went better than others. At the end is the requisite victory (beer) shot, and a pic of the kill count (73!), that is, how many people our team passed on the road.
Thanks for sharing the photos! What a fun event- as a first-timer, I’m still trying to figure out if relays are always this great or if we got especially lucky to have such an awesome team of mostly-strangers.
What – no close-up of our road-kill bunny in great detail??!
I agree with Jessica – thanks for sharing the pics! I’m impressed that your split times improved for each leg, too – mine always seem to get worse, so way to go. I had an awesome time with our van this year – and I think I’m now a semi-Neil Diamond expert:)