The 4 R’s
Ragnar Runningmoms.com Race Report
Run, Rest, Refuel, Repeat
This is the 3rd year I’ve done this crazy race where “you and 11 of your crazy friends cover 200 miles from Lacrosse WI to Minneapolis, MN” – this year, though, they moved the start line to Winona, MN so our route took us from MN to WI back to MN. The changes they had to make
this year were due to some permits that they couldn’t obtain or something. With those changes came a change to which “leg” of the race I would run. To clarify – there are 2 vans, each van has 6 runners and any designated crew they may want (our van had 2 crew members). In our van was Casper, Dani, Amy, Erin, Karen, and myself – and yes, we ran in that order. Our crew was Thom and Joel. The other van was led by Coley with her husband Jon, Matt, Kendra, Beaner, and Nichole.
In previous years, I had been Runner #2 in Van #1. However as mentioned previously, course changes changed who would run where, and I ended up as runner #6. I would cover a total of 19.7 miles whereas Runner #2 this year had what started out as 16 miles and it crept into 18.9 miles as they had to make course adjustments all of the way up until the day we ran! I do hope to get Runner #2 position back next year by the way. This year, we also went as team “Runningmoms.com” – check it out! My friends Dani, Joel, and Amy started this site to encourage, help, and promote moms, fitness, and running – wonderful concept! I’m totally into supporting them on that!!! Onto the report…
Running as runner #6, I knew it wasn’t going to be easy – there were going to be lots of hills, but that’s also the course for anyone in the van, so that was nothing new. I had an 8.3 mile run, 7.5 mile, and 3.9 mile – all of which I maintained a pace of under 8:00! I have never busted that mark before! Last year my pace ranged from 8:15 – 8:29 for any of the legs I did, so this is a huge improvement for me. I ran the first 8.3 with a 7:57 pace. Sure, not much under an 8:00, but it is still under an 8:00. The rating on this run was “VH” – for very hard due to the course and the distance. I started this run at about 3:30 in the afternoon, so it was also getting warm. As soon as I finished my run, we hopped into the van and drove about 40 minutes to Stockholm, MN. While there the van decided we should grab some grub – and that was a mistake for KP! Oops! I am not used to eating right after running, let alone eating a whole meal and my stomach let me know. I guess I never really thought about the nutrition AFTER the run, but boy will I now! My stomach cramped up on me like I’ve never had a muscle cramp before! It hurt and I wanted nothing more than to go to the bathroom – come to think of it – everyone in our van wanted nothing more than to go to the bathroom before we had to start running again! I have had the history in the van of having the running and activity “get my insides moving” – but not this year, and I wasn’t the only one. Enough about that though – believe me, our van had enough discussions of our discomfort that day….we tried to catch some shut eye on the ground in Stockholm, but that was not easily done. We were to start running again around 10:00 that night, so that was on our mind.
My second run – 7.5 miles – started at 2:00 in the morning, and this was by far the most interesting run I’ve ever done. Not only was it starting at “bar time”, but I was running to Prescott, WI where there are quite a few bars. The course at this point was a lot of downhill, followed by uphill, downhill, uphill – Joel was riding along side of me on a bike to help light the way for me and “protect” me, and at one point I had to say “yep – Murphy’s law – what goes down must come up!” Every time I ran down, I had to run back up! Oh well…this one was rated “VH” once again, so I had to suck it up. As we approached Prescott, WI, the bars were…well, let’s just say patrons were rowdy enough to require a couple of vehicles with flashing lights to be outside – 2 ambulances were blocking my way on the road. What to do, what to do? So, Joel and I decide to take the path of least resistance and cross to the opposite side of the road and continue on. Outside of the bar on that side, however, were a group of ‘drunks’…college aged kids looking to have a good time. From the group came the shouts wondering why we were running and betting us they could go faster. Joel – my “protector” – decided to challenge them to racing me. Just as he does that…I make the right hand turn and “Holy Mother…” is what I think I said next as I stared at the major incline I was about to run up. Remember all of the “what goes down, must go up” business earlier? Yeah, well, apparently I was running down more than I was running up and this was the point where it all caught up to me. Before me was a major climb from the bar district to get to the “high school” district in the town of Prescott. One of the drunks decided at that point that they would use the liquid courage they had built up, and they would challenge me up the hill. I couldn’t let a drunk beat me, so although I’d already run 6.5 miles at this point, I dropped another hammer and went a bit faster than I had been. I felt the burn in the hamstrings as I did that climb, but I outran and outlasted the drunk…whew! (thanks Joel!) I probably wouldn’t have run up that hill that fast had he not made that challenge, so all was good…I’m just glad I wasn’t running that without Joel on the bike next to me! Finishing that hill, we make another turn, and even more steep than the first hill, I face another hill! What the??!? I dig deeper and keep on going. Joel still riding by my side, encouraging me…I crossed the finish line just 56 minutes later and at a pace of 7:28 for 7.5 miles!
From Prescott, we drove to Stillwater where we would wait for our Van #2 to finish their run. Everyone is doing well and kicking butt! Dani and Amy had both set personal records for pace and everyone was feeling pretty good, except for the fact that we only got maybe 2 hours of shut eye for the past 24 hours. My last run was just 3.9 miles long, but was all up hill – gradual, but all uphill! Starting out, I felt a bit tight and my legs felt heavy. I quickly realized I had to adjust my stride a bit to make things go a bit easier. Nothing too eventful happened on this run, and just 30 minutes later I was at the finish line ready to hand the baton off for the last time to Van #2…but wait…why is Joel there at the finish flagging me to slow down?? Huh? What? Van #2 ISN’T HERE?! Argh – I busted butt to get here, but you know what – the fact that they weren’t there was a minor thing. I had a goal to maintain my speed of under 8:00’s for the race, and I did! I accomplished my goal, and however long it took for Van #2 to get there, it wasn’t going to affect our “standings” enough to make us win a prize, so…we waited and waited for them to get there.
I think they taught us all a lesson – make sure to read all directions and exchange #’s posted when you get somewhere – they were at Tartan High when they should have been at Tartan Park. Oh well. J I did what I had to do…now it was up to them!
All in all, it was yet another great race. Thanks to my “team runningmoms.com” for getting together and doing this – I’m looking forward to running Ragnar with this team again next year! Next up – Minneapolis Duathlon! Stay tuned…
Ragnar Runningmoms.com Race Report
Run, Rest, Refuel, Repeat
This is the 3rd year I’ve done this crazy race where “you and 11 of your crazy friends cover 200 miles from Lacrosse WI to Minneapolis, MN” – this year, though, they moved the start line to Winona, MN so our route took us from MN to WI back to MN. The changes they had to make
this year were due to some permits that they couldn’t obtain or something. With those changes came a change to which “leg” of the race I would run. To clarify – there are 2 vans, each van has 6 runners and any designated crew they may want (our van had 2 crew members). In our van was Casper, Dani, Amy, Erin, Karen, and myself – and yes, we ran in that order. Our crew was Thom and Joel. The other van was led by Coley with her husband Jon, Matt, Kendra, Beaner, and Nichole.In previous years, I had been Runner #2 in Van #1. However as mentioned previously, course changes changed who would run where, and I ended up as runner #6. I would cover a total of 19.7 miles whereas Runner #2 this year had what started out as 16 miles and it crept into 18.9 miles as they had to make course adjustments all of the way up until the day we ran! I do hope to get Runner #2 position back next year by the way. This year, we also went as team “Runningmoms.com” – check it out! My friends Dani, Joel, and Amy started this site to encourage, help, and promote moms, fitness, and running – wonderful concept! I’m totally into supporting them on that!!! Onto the report…
Running as runner #6, I knew it wasn’t going to be easy – there were going to be lots of hills, but that’s also the course for anyone in the van, so that was nothing new. I had an 8.3 mile run, 7.5 mile, and 3.9 mile – all of which I maintained a pace of under 8:00! I have never busted that mark before! Last year my pace ranged from 8:15 – 8:29 for any of the legs I did, so this is a huge improvement for me. I ran the first 8.3 with a 7:57 pace. Sure, not much under an 8:00, but it is still under an 8:00. The rating on this run was “VH” – for very hard due to the course and the distance. I started this run at about 3:30 in the afternoon, so it was also getting warm. As soon as I finished my run, we hopped into the van and drove about 40 minutes to Stockholm, MN. While there the van decided we should grab some grub – and that was a mistake for KP! Oops! I am not used to eating right after running, let alone eating a whole meal and my stomach let me know. I guess I never really thought about the nutrition AFTER the run, but boy will I now! My stomach cramped up on me like I’ve never had a muscle cramp before! It hurt and I wanted nothing more than to go to the bathroom – come to think of it – everyone in our van wanted nothing more than to go to the bathroom before we had to start running again! I have had the history in the van of having the running and activity “get my insides moving” – but not this year, and I wasn’t the only one. Enough about that though – believe me, our van had enough discussions of our discomfort that day….we tried to catch some shut eye on the ground in Stockholm, but that was not easily done. We were to start running again around 10:00 that night, so that was on our mind.
My second run – 7.5 miles – started at 2:00 in the morning, and this was by far the most interesting run I’ve ever done. Not only was it starting at “bar time”, but I was running to Prescott, WI where there are quite a few bars. The course at this point was a lot of downhill, followed by uphill, downhill, uphill – Joel was riding along side of me on a bike to help light the way for me and “protect” me, and at one point I had to say “yep – Murphy’s law – what goes down must come up!” Every time I ran down, I had to run back up! Oh well…this one was rated “VH” once again, so I had to suck it up. As we approached Prescott, WI, the bars were…well, let’s just say patrons were rowdy enough to require a couple of vehicles with flashing lights to be outside – 2 ambulances were blocking my way on the road. What to do, what to do? So, Joel and I decide to take the path of least resistance and cross to the opposite side of the road and continue on. Outside of the bar on that side, however, were a group of ‘drunks’…college aged kids looking to have a good time. From the group came the shouts wondering why we were running and betting us they could go faster. Joel – my “protector” – decided to challenge them to racing me. Just as he does that…I make the right hand turn and “Holy Mother…” is what I think I said next as I stared at the major incline I was about to run up. Remember all of the “what goes down, must go up” business earlier? Yeah, well, apparently I was running down more than I was running up and this was the point where it all caught up to me. Before me was a major climb from the bar district to get to the “high school” district in the town of Prescott. One of the drunks decided at that point that they would use the liquid courage they had built up, and they would challenge me up the hill. I couldn’t let a drunk beat me, so although I’d already run 6.5 miles at this point, I dropped another hammer and went a bit faster than I had been. I felt the burn in the hamstrings as I did that climb, but I outran and outlasted the drunk…whew! (thanks Joel!) I probably wouldn’t have run up that hill that fast had he not made that challenge, so all was good…I’m just glad I wasn’t running that without Joel on the bike next to me! Finishing that hill, we make another turn, and even more steep than the first hill, I face another hill! What the??!? I dig deeper and keep on going. Joel still riding by my side, encouraging me…I crossed the finish line just 56 minutes later and at a pace of 7:28 for 7.5 miles!
From Prescott, we drove to Stillwater where we would wait for our Van #2 to finish their run. Everyone is doing well and kicking butt! Dani and Amy had both set personal records for pace and everyone was feeling pretty good, except for the fact that we only got maybe 2 hours of shut eye for the past 24 hours. My last run was just 3.9 miles long, but was all up hill – gradual, but all uphill! Starting out, I felt a bit tight and my legs felt heavy. I quickly realized I had to adjust my stride a bit to make things go a bit easier. Nothing too eventful happened on this run, and just 30 minutes later I was at the finish line ready to hand the baton off for the last time to Van #2…but wait…why is Joel there at the finish flagging me to slow down?? Huh? What? Van #2 ISN’T HERE?! Argh – I busted butt to get here, but you know what – the fact that they weren’t there was a minor thing. I had a goal to maintain my speed of under 8:00’s for the race, and I did! I accomplished my goal, and however long it took for Van #2 to get there, it wasn’t going to affect our “standings” enough to make us win a prize, so…we waited and waited for them to get there.
I think they taught us all a lesson – make sure to read all directions and exchange #’s posted when you get somewhere – they were at Tartan High when they should have been at Tartan Park. Oh well. J I did what I had to do…now it was up to them!All in all, it was yet another great race. Thanks to my “team runningmoms.com” for getting together and doing this – I’m looking forward to running Ragnar with this team again next year! Next up – Minneapolis Duathlon! Stay tuned…
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