A weekend at the races

Wow. What a weekend it's been!

The "Great River" Ragnar Relay was absolutely incredible - I thought it would be fun, but it far exceeded my expectations! A total of 233 teams (!) participated - most were 12-person teams with 2 support vans per team. There were a few "ultra" 6-person teams also, but I was floored by the sheer number of folks who participated - it was absolutely awesome.

Everyone was so enthusiastic & fun - some of the teams were just insane - wild costumes, crazily decorated vans, bullhorns, sirens, booming radios, all sorts of flashing lights - it was so much fun. And all of the folks (other racers and volunteers) were fabulous - everyone was so supportive of each other throughout the race - we were all in it together. We had a blast getting to know some of the other teams we were pacing with at various points over the two days.

Overall, "The Loo Lovers" (our team) did impressively well - we soundly beat all of our forecasted legs times, and finished the race well ahead of schedule. Unofficially, it looks like we averaged 8 minutes per mile over the 195 total miles. I was very happy with how I did - I was runner profile #11, and my three legs were all ~4.5 miles. My legs were all pretty flat, so I just hit the gas as hard as I could. That got harder as the relay went on, since I got maybe 2 hours of sleep over the two days - and that was better than some folks who didn't sleep at all - our opportunities to rest were few and very brief!

The weather was fantastic throughout. The night leg was my favorite. It was completely dark (no moon and zero street lights on most of the leg), but temperature & conditions were perfect, and it felt great to tear it up. My headlamp provided enough light to see, and our van kept our nighttime runners in sight the entire time - they just leap-frogged along as the runner progressed, and could thus immediately provide cheering, water, or any assistance. This was a luxury that the usual daytime traffic on the roads would not afford - during the day, the van provided support to the runner at 1, 2, or 3 points along their route, but that was the best we could do.

I will absolutely do Ragnar again. Many more times, I hope! It made me remember again why I love running - the camaraderie and just plain simple fun of it provided a much-needed recharging of my training batteries. The whole experience was incredible - it was a celebratory 28+ hour running love fest - as close to a Woodstock as the running world can get :)

Some pics from the race can be found on the Facebook Loo Lovers page. Hopefully, more will be added over the next several days...

I was finally home from Ragnar at about 4 pm on Saturday, and then...

It was time to get ready for the St Paul Triathlon on Sunday morning - my first-ever triathlon. I had registered for the "sprint course" before I was asked to sub in on my friend's Ragnar team, so I figured I would still try to make this tri if at all possible - it was paid for, so why not? ;)

I washed some clothes, packed up the transition bag, prepped the bike (didn't swap to race wheels for this one - not enough energy for that effort ;), and got to bed as soon as I could - I needed to get up at 4:30. Ugh.

I got about 7 hours of sleep, but that's for sure the best night of rest I've ever had before any big race - I usually don't sleep very well the night before big races.

Brewed up some coffee, and hit the road to Lake Phalen. Randy (race director) confirmed I would be able to pick up my race packet that morning, so I wanted to be there right when the transition area opened. No problems there at all - got a good transition spot and built my nest.

The sprint race was a 0.5 mile swim, a 20K bike, and 5K run. It went far better than I expected - I was extremely happy with my times (events & transitions both) - one, it was my first tri ever (woot!), and two - I had just finished Ragnar and was still physically ass-kicked from that whole experience (crazy schedule, off-pattern eating, lack of sleep, lots of running, etc). Here are my final results from the tri.

I thought the event was very well done. I've heard that some of Randy's events can be a bit unpolished, but this one was quite impressive in execution. I like that his events (Vacation Sports) are comparatively quite a bit cheaper than other races - that's nice! The transition area security left a bit to be desired (no bike-to-rider verification upon exit, opened back up too early to finished racers [some folks were still in T2, so that's not cool]), but even so, I wasn't at all worried about my bike or gear in there, so I can't really complain. Plenty of friendly volunteers and great support all the way from pre-race, along the courses, and post-race.

Some good lessons-learned...

I thought I would be crazy nervous for the swim - I have never done a swim of that distance, and this was my first long open-water swim (OWS). But, I wasn't nervous at all. I was actually a bit concerned that I had zero race nerves - usually, at least some nervousness is a good thing, but I had none. I would like to think that was because I was so well prepared, but that would be a huge lie! I guess it was just the fact that I was still emotionally drained from Ragnar - my body was just saving all energy for the race - nothing to waste on nerves. If that's the answer, it works for me!

I wore my wetsuit for the swim, and that did wonders for my confidence and performance. I feel like an invincible super-hero when I swim in that thing! Realizing that my swimming skills leave much to be desired, I waited a few seconds and left the beach towards the back of my wave. The "washing machine" wasn't bad at all (lots of contact, but all minor), but the frustrating thing was other slow swimmers - throughout the course, I kept running into lines 5 or 6 abreast of lollygagging swimmers, and I'd have to pick through them - it was hard to get in a good rhythm at any point during the swim. But, I felt really good throughout the swim overall, so I was greatly relieved by that.

Running to T1 was a trip! Everyone told me to be prepared for being dizzy and light-headed getting out of the water, but wow... that was intense! I got through T1 fine and without any major shenanigans, though I struggled a bit getting out of my wetsuit quickly due to my balance still being eff'd up. No big deal.

ALWAYS know thy courses! I didn't carefully review the courses because I didn't have time or energy to do it last night (dorked up that set of priorities!) And, of course, that bit me. Nothing bad, and I found out later numerous other people did this same thing - the bike course was an out-n-back, and as we were nearing the transition / race area again, I thought that was the end, so I reached down and slipped out of my shoes. Yeah, well... not so much the end... We actually shot around that area for a quick out-n-back. So, I had to reach down and get back in my shoes - not a huge time loss overall, but that loss would've been easily avoidable if I'd reviewed the course. I didn't race any of the tri with my Garmin since this was such a short race, so I had no way of knowing total distance - another dumb mistake.

I also had some embarrassing getting-into-my-bike-shoes buffoonery coming out of T1 - that was due to my being uncoordinated in general, and not enough practice yet with the whole leave-shoes-on-bike thing (admittedly, shame on me for bringing that unpracticed weak-sauce to a race). Shook off that snafu, and proceeded to have a solid overall bike portion - I was pleased with my pace. My quads were screaming from Ragnar when I first started to drop the hammer, but they soon quieted down. Or maybe they just surrendered and went numb. I'm not sure which.

T2 went really well - dismount from the bike went smooth, booked it to my spot, slipped on the Zoots, grabbed my visor, and I was off - 35 seconds from TA entry to exit - booyah! The first mile of the 5K was total murder - my legs were so effin' tight - I thought I was in for the longest 5K of my life... But then the legs loosened back up just fine, and I was thankfully able to settle into my usual form. By some miracle, I actually PR'd the 5K - now, where the heck did that come from?!?

All in all, a most excellent weekend - I am one happy camper right now. And grateful too - I'm blessed to have my good health, wonderful friends, and the available resources to enjoy these great opportunities!

Next events on the schedule:
8/30 - Minneapolis Duathlon
9/6 - St Croix Valley Triathlon
9/13 - volunteer at Ironman Wisconsin
10/4 - Twin Cities Marathon
10/31 - Monster Dash 1/2 Marathon

See you out there!
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