Thursday night - we met in St Paul to pack the van, prepare decorations and other silliness and drive down to Winona. When we arrived in Winona, we enjoyed the excellent pre-race food at Perkins. (Mmmm, french fries) and then went to bed.
Preparing van decorations.
Fun at Perkins. It's been a long time since I've even been there.
Friday - before the race - we just got ready for the race because we had an 8am start time.
Getting our Pre-race meal on at the McDonald's by the hotel.
Friday - GO! - The start line is always a good time. Tons and tons of people staring at us, asking for pictures, saying "oh, I saw your video on YouTube" and so on. It's like being a rock star for a few minutes.
Graham, our first runner, getting ready with some stretches.
The whole team does calisthenics at the start line. Apparently this was a big deal last year.
The whole team. This is the last time all of us will be not sweaty and gross simultaneously.
Graham, showing the other teams how to really start a race.
It was hotter than hell as far as we could tell. I saw signs ranging from 82* to 93*. This year I was runner number four, so I got to experience the heat in my first run. This was actually the hardest run of the three, because of the heat and my costume. The hill on this one wasn't even that bad.
Yes, the price I pay for being an early runner with low mileage is that all three legs are "hard". (The ratings are easy, moderate, hard and very hard. I had the only four miler that was 'hard', the rest were at least moderate.)
But then, boom, it's noon and I'm already done with my first leg. Not like the first two years when I was waiting 'till nightfall to even run.
The rest of Friday was spent playing around and eating. And eating. And playing around while everybody took their turns in the hot hot sun. This was actually the first year for us that runners 11 and 12 were starting before night time hours, meaning they did not have to run in vests. It was actually runners number 1 and 2 who got to run in vests twice this year.
Tesha and Ryan practice the slap bracelet exchange. It's actually harder than it looks.
Officer Glen arresting someone for lord knows what. Probably telling him his shorts were too small.
Graham and Laura planking.
Kate - in costume.
Somewhere north of Lake Peppin, along the Mississippi River at nightfall.
I really loved my night leg. There was a big ass hill that bothered me less than I think it bothered a lot of other people. I knew going in that it was going to suck so I was emotionally prepared. I also knew going in that was I going to get to run down the other side. And it was fun as hell. As predicted. Once I got down the other side I knew I had another 1.5 miles. So after a few minutes I started looking for the "one mile to go" sign. I knew it was going to have a red flashing light on it. Sadly, all the runners in front of me also had red flashing lights on their backs so I had a lot of fake sightings before seeing the actually sign. By the way I passed a runner on this leg. Somewhere along the top of the hill. Boom!
The rest of the night was long. I drove some, and got yelled at for driving too fast. (Sorry, it's been a while since I've driven anything this big.) We had a runner get sick. And I didn't eat nearly as much as I should have.
Saturday morning - oh, that's right, two of my runs are done already. I ran my last leg around 9am and it was the most awful leg, but not the hardest. The hill that comes at the end, that I don't get to go down, was actually not as awful as I thought it would be, but it was not fun. This leg was awful because, as mentioned, I didn't eat through the night on Friday night. I was all "I run on an empty stomach at 8am all the time, this'll be fine" but when I run on an empty stomach in the morning, I've usually had post run food from the day before and I haven't been running eight hours earlier (at midnight). I just didn't have enough juice to go. Something to remember for next year.
Tesha showing off her Ragnar 911 tattoo.
At the last big exchange before the finish, we saw Bolder Options for a pancake breakfast. We actually saw lots of people we knew at that exchange. It had something of a carnival atmosphere becuase half the runners there were done with all three of their legs. (The other half of the runners had a look of dread and impatience. How well I remember.)
The finish line was fun. It was in a different space from last year, the East River Flats park. It seemed like a bigger area for the finish line and party, and there were a ton of people there. It also was a flat finish as opposed to running the last 100 feet up an incline.
They call out each team as the final runner is about to finish, and all the teams cross the line together. When our team was finishing, the announcer said something like "we really love this team, and here's a special song for them" so they were really playing our song as we finished.
At the finish! This may be the first time our whole team was at the finish line, the last couple years we had people who needed to leave early. It was fun to celebrate with everyone.
After the race, I was so tired. I called ahead for take out and grabbed it on my way home. After eating, I remember laying down on the couch around 6pm, and moving to my bed around 8:30pm. Sometime later I woke up, thinking it was the middle of the night. Nope. 6am. Guess I have to get up again now.
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