Ragnar SoCal...203.5 Miles from LA to SD

So I've written previously describing the race I did last weekend.  It's called Ragnar, and it's a relay race where we ran from Los Angeles (Huntington Beach) to San Diego (Coronado Beach).  It was 203.5 miles and I ran it 4/20-4/21 with a few of my friends.  For five of us, this was our third Ragnar (having previously run Ragnar Las Vegas and Ragnar Florida Keys), for four others in our crew it was a first (good work, Albert, Ting, Katherine and Liz).  Others had done one previously. 

We flew in to LA on Thursday (race started Friday at 9:15 am) and went grocery shopping for all the provisions we'd need.  We were going to be running for the next 32 hours, so while we'd stop for meals, all our snacks, water, first aid supplies and run recovery concoctions would have to be with us in the vans.  We then drove out to Newport Beach where the race hotel was, and divvied up the provisions between the two vans on the two beds in the hotel room. 

The race began the following morning in Huntington Beach, CA.  Katherine (one of our van's newbies) was our first runner. 

 

While Katherine was running we gave her support (both moral and water).  We also decorated the van.  One of the cool things about Ragnar is you get to paint all over your vans.  On the right is me decorating the back of our van. 

Katherine rocked her first leg (5.1 miles) and then handed off to me (I also happened to be running 5.1 miles).  Though I was only running from 10-10:40 am (the day would subsequently get MUCH warmer - temps up to 98 degrees with a heat index near 115), running on the LA River (which for those of you who are unfamiliar with it, is not an actual river, but a concrete basin that water runs through) made it seem a lot warmer as the concrete basin just heated up the area tremendously.   

   Our van rocked through our initial runs despite the heat (and got to run by Angel Stadium which I thought was pretty cool), and some in the van decided to "shower" (by shower I mean use the very pleasantly smelling baby wipes that Katherine had brought to clean themselves up (as KDegs is doing in the picture). 

We arrived at the major interchange (where our van would pass the slap bracelet serving as a baton to van 2).  Kate (we had a lot of women who's names started with K on this trip) was waiting to take the hand off for her 8.8 mile trek in the deadly heat of the middle of the day  

 

After our van finished we went to the next major interchange (where after all the runners in van 2 had run, they'd be handing back off to our van).  Unfortunately, the heat kept rising and the route took van 2 further from the coast.  The insanely hot temperatures slowed them quite a bit and we were waiting for a while (so we had a picnic).

 

Albert easily got the best run of our van, getting to run along Lake Elsinore at sunset.  

 

While he was running the rest of us got to enjoy the pretty sunset...

 

and support him during his run.

 

Albert handed off to me and I ran my 9.3 mile leg (my longest, but in retrospect, also my easiest).  We ran through the night, handed off to the other van at around 2:30 am and drove to the next major interchange arriving around 3:30 to sleep before our third (and final) leg of the race.   The other van handed off to us around 6 am.  Katherine was again back in the first runner spot, so she was off and running on her last leg (5.5 miles).  She handed off to me and I was off on my last leg, a 7.3 mile trek.

 

 

What I hadn't appreciated (and what made this third and final leg so challenging) was that around mile 6 there was a MASSIVE hill that I'd be climbing.  Drained after having already run 20 miles, this hill was almost the end of me.  Going up, I felt like I was actually moving backwards, but I kept on moving putting one foot in front of the other.  The last half mile was down hill and I was hauling.  I wanted to give it every last ounce of strength I had left.

  

I handed off to Ting and collapsed in the van.  It was one of the most exhillerating feelings I've ever had.  We continued to run along the coastline outside of San Diego. Ting handed off to Kathleen (KDegs)...

who handed off to Albert and finally to Beth. 

Before handing off to the other van. We were done.  While we waited for the other van, we checked into our hotel, showered (real showers this time), and went out to brunch (which of course was accompanied by celebratory drinks), got some milkshakes, and took a well deserved nap. 

We met the other van at the finish line and ran across it as a team.  We'd made the 203.5 mile trek!!!