Ragnar (More Mud Please)

Sometimes, things become so ridiculous, they are hilarious.  That was my experience with the Ragnar Trail Relay this past weekend.  I'm pretty sure that none of us were quite prepared for the condition of the trails, and that might have been a very good thing!

This was the first time any of us had attempted a Ragnar race, therefore our expectations were in line with other relays we had done, except we would not be on the roads. There was camping involved, and that always spells fun.

Part of our two teams of 16 headed out Thursday to set up camp and prepare for the rest of the teams' arrival on Friday.  It seemed all was going well until we got this message:


Seems a storm rolled through after everything was set up and there was carnage everywhere.  A few had lost all bedding and dry gear and so a plan was made to resupply.  I am sure I wasn't the only one rethinking my packing list (and yet rain boots still didn't seem an obvious choice!!)  When we arrived Friday, it was damp, but not raining, and we were able to do our set up.  On the bright side, staking the tents down was like a knife through butter - no mallet necessary!

now they know how to set up a tent!

Since I was the 4th runner of 8, I had some time to get my tent assembled and get somewhat organized.  My one man tent was pretty small, but did the job and it was on a high spot.  That was going to REALLY come in handy later.  I had packed everything in waterproof bags, so I knew my stuff would stay pretty dry.  Oh, did I mention we were set up about 1/4 mile from the "hub" where the relay exchanges would take place.  This will become important later....
After getting set up, we walked to the start and were able to get a feel for where we would be spending the next two days, in and out of the exchanges, eating, buying way too much merchandise, and warming up by the fire.  Sometime during this adventure, it started raining again.  Gently at first, and then a full out downpour.  Luckily I had packed my raincoat.  Unfortunately, it was in my tent!  I was wearing a heavy ERR sweatshirt that was increasingly becoming more and more soaked.  After a while, when we sent our runners off, I headed back to the tents as the rain picked up in intensity.  Bad decision. Remember when I said we were about 1/4 mile from the staging area?  Yeah, well do you know how wet a sweatshirt can get in the time it takes to jog that far??  
I suspect Ragar knew what they were doing when they had long sleeved shirts, jackets and sweats in their sale tent in the end of June. 

Perfect...just what I am looking for!

Each runner had to do three loops on three different trails.  Green, Yellow and Red.   The concept sounded so easy but man, I could not keep straight what color I was suppose to be doing.  I think it was the race director's fault...he made the comment on the "informational video" that it was just like a stop light, but in reverse - from the bottom up.  The tricky part was that was for the TEAM, not each runner.  And being #4, I just couldn't keep track of my order.  My stop light was all messed up, going from Green to Red and ending with Yellow.  Thankfully I had Cassie, who was also runner #4 on the second team to keep me on track.  Because nothing makes sense at 11 pm in the pouring rain, and it makes even less sense at 8 in the morning (again in the pouring rain) with little sleep.

My favorite leg was the night run.  I have done plenty of night runs before, and have liked them all, but with the rain, the mud, the technical, rocky trail, I really felt like a little kid just out there having a blast.  The muddy puddles were so deep and thick that I came very close to losing my shoes.  The mud was just coating everything, and with the added challenge of crawling over boulders, I just had to stop and laugh.  People were falling and slipping all over the place.  There were parts that were so beautiful with just the glow of my headlamp.  This was called the "Swamp Trail" for obvious reasons. I was running so well, with absolutely  no fear and in my own world of happiness, that it is no surprise that with 2/10 of a mile to go, I missed the very obvious sign to continue straight and headed up the road.  It took a bit of time for me to realize that 1)no one was following me and 2) this was a heck of a lot longer than it should be before I turned and got back on track.  Poor Rick, who saw my name on the board with only 2/10th to go had to wait 15 minutes for me to come in.  I tend to zone out when I am really loving trail running and this wasn't a great time for that!! But I crossed the bridge and was done with the second trail.

Bridge in daylight...and no rain.

 After a couple hours sleep, I woke to get ready for the third run.  Everyone had said how beautiful the yellow trail was, and I was excited to run it and take pictures.  As we made our way back to the start we found that there was  no water, a storm was moving in, and all the legs were asked to double up to get folks done sooner.  There was a sense of urgency (aka: fear) in everyone from the RD to the participants. After having the campsite almost taken out Thursday, no one wanted a repeat of that, especially this late in the game.  The yellow trail did not disappoint.  It was fantastic.  From the rocky footing among the ferns to the pine forest, I was loving it all.  And then the rain started, and I loved it even more.  Pouring, drenching rain filtering through the pines on a cushioned trail, up and down.  Perfect!

I could have run this trail forever, but my teammates were breaking camp and loading the cars in the storms so I hurried along.  The footing at the end was pretty hilarious and I am glad that I was pretty well healed coming into this race! 

mud photos courtesy of Cassie Smink

Once back, I did a pretty poor job at cleaning off and changed while we waited for our last runners to return. They were doing the Red loop, and while it wasn't dark, and no longer raining, I am certain it was still pretty tough!  We all made it back and lived to tell the story.  Finished with some celebratory beverages, cool multi-tool medals and memories of a damn fine weekend.

Runner Gone Rogue 1&2

Switchbacks, Snakes and Sliding Boards

So running is never without its inherent risks, especially trail running.  Who would have known one of my most debilitating injuries would come from falling down a sliding board!

I mean, this maybe...but a sliding board??

But yeah, 15 miles into a 20 mile run, I thought it might be fun to go down a vintage wooden slide, and the combination of being wet from sweat, along with not sitting down fast enough caused a full out butt fall.

This doesn't look dangerous at all!

 My tail bone is just beginning to forgive me more than 7 weeks later.  Curiously enough, running didn't hurt at all, in fact, nothing standing hurt, and if I could stand 24/7 for the almost two months it took to heal, it wouldn't have been a problem at all.  It was all that pesky driving, eating, and working that were tricky.

But at least since I could still run, I could train for Holy Cowan's Gap.  It had been almost two months since I ran an ultra, and the itch was starting.  Feeling somewhat of a failure after two attempts at 100 miles, I wanted something that would test my ability to persist/complete something really hard.  I was going to wait until Catoctin in the summer, but really needed a day in the woods, so what the heck.  Even Coach's descriptive email didn't deter me from entering:
 
The course starts with a quite steep medium long rocky climb.  From there it crosses a lot of plateau (you see this in the video) and a lot of rolling hills, and forested and open areas.  Really quite beautiful.  At some point you go into the woods and go slowly downhill, turn right and start up a stream.  No trail, just stream.  With water, ferns, and mud.  It gets steeper and after you don't think it can get much more steep you have to scramble up a hillside to a road.  Cross the road and the world tilts really steeply up.  I mean steep.  Get that done and it is a mixed bag of  geography until you are back at the picnic pavillion.  Out on the northern loop.  Probably 5 miles to the stupid steep hill.  But once you cross the ridge you scramble across a boulder field.  Just a pile of huge rocks, finally out onto a forest road and then you begin to go up again.  And if just gets steeper and steeper and the trail is not maintained, and you are laughing and crying and cussing and screaming at the sky  like a madman until you get over the top and make your way back down.  And then when you don't think it can get worse....you go up again.  And it gets steeper and steeper and you are laughing and crying and cussing and screaming at the sky  like a madman until you get over the top and make your way back down. And then its five miles or so  back to the BBQ... (sounds fun, right???)
 
.For this race, because it is tough, you have to be accepted, so I anxiously awaited my letter.  Even though I have run lots of ultras, I have struggled on a few of the harder ones.  When I saw my name on the entrants list, it occurred to me that now I HAD to finish this! 

To fully appreciate this accomplishment, you probably should take a look at this short video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2_Mei3Rugo
Especially notice how happy all the runners are going up the very straight trails on the mountain.  I really like the runner who says "with all this room, why not have switchbacks??"  Great point.  I guess they are not just for making runners dizzy.  As much as I was up for a challenge, I must admit that the last two times up the mountain were not pretty.

To make this run more super fun, we even came across a rattler hissing on the side of the trail.  Lucky for us, Don talked nice to it, so it calmed down pretty fast.

The views from this run were amazing, and it was a great day out there.  It took me 9++ hours to complete the 31 miles, and it was hard, but the calf massage, great food, wonderful people and beautiful scenery sure made it more than worth it.  I would do it again in a heartbeat!