Chicago Marathon

Chicago Marathon

Monday, November 12, 2012

Ragnar Relay Tennessee 2012...Before the race

I just finished my third Ragnar Relay!  The first two I did were Madison, WI to Chicago, IL.  The one I completed this past weekend was Chattanooga TN, to Nashville TN.  I loved both courses, but both our completely different races!

So what is a Ragnar Relay.  In summary it is a relay race that consist of either 6 or 12 people per team doing 36 legs (a leg is a individual run before you hand off to the next runner).  Generally each leg is of different length and variety of difficulty.  Some may be as little as 2 miles to as long as 11 or 12 miles.  Once you finish your leg you will hand it off to your teammate and they will run the next one.  You do this for the next 24-35 hours.  The whole time you are struggling for sleep, a good meal, feeling clean, and so much more.  It is truly something you may not grasp till you actually do it.  Most teams are split up into two different vans, with 6 people in each van.  Even though you are one team working towards one goal, you feel like you are two separate teams.  The team that you are in the van with, is the team that you will be with the majority of the time and the one you get to know real well. 

Our team had a total of 12 people.  A good majority of the people are part of Cross Fit Windy City.  I knew two people going into the race, but felt like I knew them all.  There is a lot of time in the vans, to talk about each other lives and learn about each other.

I met with 5 other people in Chicago around 1:45 pm and we left on our journey to Chattanooga, Tn.   I met up with Kendra, Dole, Meagles, Peaches, and Matt to drive down.  We listen to great music, good conversation, and joke the way down.  It took about 10 hours to get there.  We stoped a few time a long the way.  We ate at Montana's Mikes, and a few gas stations.  We finally got the Fairfield in around 12:30 at night, checked in and went to bed.

At this time, I met half of my team.  I really only knew two people, however I met them all soon.  By the end of the race, it felt like we were life long friends.   

We woke up the next day, ate some breakfast and went to the start line.  Before, we left, Meagles and Tennessee presented with the shirts that had designed for us.  Look below, they are great.  You could not ask for a better shirt.


Our team name is Southern Discomfort, which does us justice.  We were in the south and the whole race we are pretty much in discomfort.

We went to the race line and took a team photo.  Which is below, it just does not include Peaches and Emily.  They had some work to get done beforehand, and met us just after this picture was taken.

 
From left to right is brock, dole, kenda, dave, brian, same, meagles, blake, me and Tenessee.  So, our start time was at 10:30 am Eastern.  Sam started us off, and got us off to a great start.  I will continue with our runs on the next post.  The Ragnar was great againa and I will get into more detail soon.



Ragnar Relay Tennessee 2012, Leg 1 by marclindblom at Garmin Connect - Details