Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Meeting the Ragnars


Last night, my Ragnar Relay team had a short little meeting.  I was a true meeting for me since I only knew 1 member of the team.  So I met Scott, Rob, and Paul.  I already knew Brian so the only member of the team missing was Tricia.  As you can see, we are a 6 member team so we qualify as an "ultra" team.  Most teams have 12 members.

What is a Ragnar Relay?  Ragnar is a running relay race.  There are a whole bunch of them all over the country but the one I am going to be doing starts in Madison, WI, runs through Milwaukee, WI, and the culminates in Chicago, IL.  The race is about 200 miles long so we will be running through the night.  The race is broken into 36 different "legs" of various distances.  Normally with a team of 12, each runner will run 3 different legs with a long time in between.  With an Ultra Team, each runner does 6 different legs.  Out team has chosen to run 2 legs per time.

Our meeting was not much about Ragnar.  We did get to discussing 'business' after awhile, but it was more about getting to know the new guys, cracking jokes, and having a couple "dollar burgers" at the bar.  Eventually we talked about who would be running which legs.  Turns out I have been given the anchor legs.  I hope I run like I have an anchor around my waist.  I will be running about 36 miles over the roughly 30 hours we will be out there.  As much as I like to run as fast as I can, and I will do my best, our team is not about competing.  We will be out there just having fun and being crazy.  It sounds like most of the team runs pretty close to the same pace so that is good.

Only about 6 weeks until the race so the excitement is building.

Keep on Running!!!

1 comment:

Melanie said...

You are going to have a blast. I've done 3 Ragnars, including the one you're planning to run! They are so fun. I've done all 3 as a 12-person team, but we are talking about doing an ultra team this year. And pretty much every time I've run I've only known 1-2 people on the team, but then I get to know the others and we become like family. I love relays!