Serenity Now!: A Ragnar Story

PREFACE
Thursday, June 11th, one day before the start of the 2015 Madison-to-Chicago Ragnar Relay. All week long people have asked if I'm excited or nervous for the Ragnar, and I reply, "neither", it's just something that I'm doing. That sentiment will change in a big way. Joe and I have the day off to take care of business - a morning run, the Boyz annual vet visit (complete with Chaco pooping all over the place out of stress), grocery shopping, errand chasing, packing and van pick-up. We are part of Van 2, which will be a large white passenger van. Joe and I volunteered to pick up the van since it was relatively close to our house. We power through our busy day until all that's left to do is pick up the van, pack, and begin decorating the van. As we're getting ready to head out, monsoon like rains enter our area. Flood warnings pop up ... will this stop in time for Ragnar? Stress levels begin to creep. We arrive at the Avis rental counter to the blank faced worker who tells us there is no van for us - the reservations were made for the prior week (WHAAAAAT?). She calls around to every metro Milwaukee location, but all vans have been rented to fellow Ragnarians. Our heads begin to explode. Forget the rain, will we even be in the Ragnar??? I call Bobbi, the co-captain of Team Serenity Now!, and she springs into action. Tells us to hang tight. We return home with guts churning and walk in circles for an hour - do we pack? I wait to hear from Bobbi, who at one point tells me we will still have a vehicle, that the worst case scenario would be 7 of us crammed into a Tahoe. I'm on the verge of tears. I cannot be in a tight space like that with 6 other sweaty, food-smacking people. Outside, rain continues to pound down at a rate of an inch per hour. At last, some good news - Bobbi has found one lonesome van available in Janesville. She and Kathy (another teammate) will get the van and deliver it fairly close to our location. My shattered head begins to to reassemble. We pack, we get the van (a brand new beauty with only 200 miles on it that has plenty of space, including an aisle for easy access to seating), things will be okay. Due to continued rain, we can't decorate, but there will be time for that tomorrow. With crisis averted, Van 2 will have nothing but luck for the next 36 hours.

Van 2 - Back Row: Jen, Amanda  

Front Row: Jaime, Joy. Joe, Rolf, Leslie

CAST OF CHARACTERS
Runner 7 - Rolf, married to Leslie (see Runner 8). Rolf is a girls soccer recruiter for MSOE. Rolf is an understated, fun, dry humored guy in his early 40's. He likes to run with a Camelbak and takes rolling and stretchering seriously. Total Ragnar Miles = ~19

Runner 8 - Leslie, married to Rolf (see Runner 7). Leslie is a social worker in a contracted position with Waukesha County, working with children with special needs. Leslie is in her late 30's, a nurturing helpful kind of person. Leslie does not sweat when she runs. 
Total Ragnar Miles = ~16

Runner 9 - Amanda. Amanda works with Leslie at Waukesha County as a social worker for children with special needs. Amanda is in her mid 30's, and is one of the purely sweetest people you will ever meet. She even felt bad about her "road kills" (more about those in a later chapter). Total Ragnar Miles = ~13+

Runner 10 - Jaime. Jaime is friends with Joy and knows Joe. She is in her late 30's and works for Waukesha County as a social worker with mentally ill teens. Jaime is sarcastic, but kind. She loves cultural diversity and just had her second child in October (so she had to frequently pump breast milk on this journey). She chews a lot of gum and like Leslie, she does not sweat when she runs. Total Ragnar Miles = ~15+

Runner 11 - Joy, married to Joe (see Runner 12). Joy is a clinical therapist for Waukesha County, working with mentally ill adults. Joy is in her mid-40's. She likes to take charge, speaks her mind and tends to talk too much. Joy sweats enough for both Leslie and Jaime.
Total Ragnar Miles = ~17

Runner 12 - Joe, married to Joy (see Runner 11) is in his mid-40's. Joe knows Jaime from past races with Joy. Joe is an environmental engineer by day, an artist by night. Joe is quiet, clever, funny and a problem solver. He attained legend status for his speed and "road kill" skills. Total Ragnar Miles = ~17+

Van Driver - Jen. A former runner, Jen was excited for each of our legs, and took great care of us - making sure we got to every exchange point on time. Jen is in her late 30's and works with Amanda and Leslie as a social worker with children with special needs. Jen is thoughtful, kind, caring and hilarious. 

CHAPTER 1: Leg 1
Friday, June 12th. While Van 1 started the race out of Madison in chilly downpours, Van 2 runners were snug in their warm dry beds, enjoying the leisure of not meeting until 9:00 a.m. at Goerke's Corner's to load the van. This kind of good fortune would follow our van for the duration of the event. The van loaded, we hit the road to Lake Mills for the first major exchange (a major exchange is when the last Van 1 runner passes the slap band to the first Van 2 runner), with tunes pumping thanks to the huge playlist Jen assembled for us.

Jammin' in Van 2: Joe, Leslie, Jaime, Joy

Excitement built as we pulled into the Lake Mills High School parking lot crammed full of runners with white vans. The rain stopped and we had hours to spare before our first legs of running would start. We completed our mandatory safety training, made multiple trips to the Port-o-Pottie's and decorated the van under the tutelage of Joe's artistic eye. 

Team Name on Right Side

The Tracking of Completed Legs

Team Name on Left Side with a Road Kill Tally Chart

By 2:00p.m., Van 2 runners were hitting the trails. The process goes like this: your runner takes off, everyone hangs out for a little while (how long depends on what your runner's projected time of arrival at the next exchange is - there is an actual spreadsheet with our predicted arrivals), and then drive to the next exchange point. The drive to each exchange may or may not parallel the route your runner is taking. Sometimes you see your runner and stop to cheer them on. Sometimes you don't see them until they pass through the exchange. The exchanges are full of teams supporting their next-up-runners, waiting for their team member to sprint through and pass the slap band on to them. There is lots of cheering for all runners, and ample tagging of other team vehicles with your team-specific magnets (team magnets are made out of pocket, this is not something the race provides). When hearing about this process, we all expected to have more downtime than we ever did. We were constantly on the move with no sense of time. It was the perfect way to decompress from the stress of daily life - you're so in the moment that there's no time to think or do, you just show up, cheer, run, and repeat. 

My Leg 1 commenced at 5:10 p.m. running along the crushed limestone Glacier Drumlin Trail from Sullivan to Dousman. I had perfect conditions - clouds, 55°- for my 5.9 mile route. The path was beautiful - at times canopied with trees, but then opening up to views of rolling hills, lakes preceded by cattail marshes and a river/creek paralleling the trail. I passed a snapping turtle, a plethora of turtle holes that had clutches of hatched eggs and was serenaded in some segments by loudly chirping frogs. During the Ragnar Relay the thing to do is to get and track "road kill". Road kill refers to runner's passed, and the more road kill a team has, the more prestige they carry. I was up against some crazy fast movers in this leg, and only secured 3 road kills. Per the advice of my running coach, I did not run full throttle with the intention of saving my energy for future legs that would be done with accumulating sleep deprivation. I performed well and felt good. This first leg was my slowest, but I would get faster in each leg with less and less sleep - go figure! Before I knew it, my leg was over and I approached the Dousman exchange where I would pass the slap band on to Joe.

Steps Away From Passing Off to Joe

Joe took off for his 6.8 mile leg along the paved Glacial Drumlin Trail from Dousman to Wales. Knowing he was our fastest runner, we wasted little time driving to the next exchange. Joe's path became visable to us from the road, and we pulled over to cheer him on. As he approached, we yelled at him to "kill" the woman 50 ft. ahead of him. In response, he flashed both hands twice and pointed to the woman to indicate she would be his 20th kill. Joe rolled into the exchange with a 7:15 pace and 30 road kills! A legend was born.

Next, a quick pitstop for Subway on the go. A veggie deelite on toasted flatbread with creamy sriracha sauce never tasted so good as we drove to our next major exchange - Martin Luther High School in Greendale. We arrived to the school around 9p.m. and had approximately 90 minutes to try resting on the matted floors of the basement wrestling room. Jen, our beloved driver, refused to sleep, choosing to stand sentry for us to make sure no glitch would occur with being up and ready for Leg 2. Pumped with adrenaline and a nearby man sawing some serious logs, sleep would be futile (at least for Joe and me - some team members did sleep), but at least we could quietly lay with our blanket and pillows to rest. 

No Zzzzzz's for us

10:30 p.m. the text comes in that Dan, our Team Captain and Runner 6 from Van 1, is 2 miles out from the exchange. It's time for us to get up and send Rolf, our Runner 7, into Leg 2.

CHAPTER 2: Leg 2

Ragnar takes the safety of night running seriously. Every runner must wear a reflective vest, a headlamp and a blinking light on their backside. For fun, we added glow bands to our wrists and necks. With Rolf out on the road, we were facing our middle of the night runs, something that I purposely wanted to experience in this event (Van 1 would get to "sleep" on the wrestling mats we'd left behind through the heart of the night). I usually started feeling nervous about 2 runners out, so as Leslie rolled in with exclamations of how amazing it felt to run beyond the midnight hour, my stomach rolled over a bit. I was really doing this! Amanda finished her run with the same zeal Leslie had - Amanda's special moment was running through an underpass where a man (a race volunteer) was playing the tuba. Amanda passed the slapband to Jaime, who would have a pitch black woodsy trail to run, and the rest of us were on our way to the next exchange, where Jaime would pass off to me. It was an exciting drive down a darkened road where in a matter of minutes we nearly ran over a large hustling raccoon (Jen exclaims, "It's a bear!"), had a crazy and/or drunken man wobbling in the middle of the road, approaching our van as we slowed not to hit him, and were foiled by our GPS that led us to a dead end where a railroad line sat inert.

We arrived at the Cliffside Park exchange, now known as the whisper exchange. Located in a residential neighborhood, Ragnarians were to whisper in the night. Occasionally, someone would use their outdoor voice as we waited for our runners to come in, which would be met with an aggressively annoying "Shhhhhhhh!" from the race volunteers operating the exchange. Typically, at each exchange as a runner approaches, a volunteer will call out the team number (we were #60) coming in so the next relayer knows to be ready. That didn't happen here, so suddenly Jaime was within 10ft. of me, and I was launched into the starless night. 

Ready For my 2a.m. Run

My 6 mile run along rural Racine roads began at 2:17a.m. Usually an ungodly hour in which I would never want to be conscious, I felt alive, awake, alert, enthusiastic. A cloudy, humid, 52°night hid Lake Michigan from view, but for a mile I could hear the gentle rolling of waves lapping the shore to my left. I settled into a steady pace, 7 seconds per mile faster than I ran Leg 1, and in the final 2 miles began collecting road kills who were petering out, perhaps those who did not pace themselves as well. I cruised into Exchange 23 with 8 road kills, and sent Joe on to North Beach Park. 

Joe had a short 2.9 mile leg, so Van 2 had to boogey to collect him. Fog horns sounding, Van 2 made their way by foot down a steep dew soaked hill to the beach along Lake Michigan's shore, where we met our Van 1 teammates to swap stories before their Runner 1, Tammy, would take over for Joe. Though Joe's run was less than half of mine, he snagged 17 kills! The legend grew. "Tent City" was set up on the beach for runners who wanted to snooze in a tent, but we just wanted to get to the next Major Exchange in North Chicago. 

CHAPTER 3: Leg 3

Van 2 luck continued into Illinois - our 2nd legs finished, the skies opened up, soaking Van 1 runners in the early dawn hours. Ever thoughtful Jen included soothing Beethoven pieces in our playlist in anticipation of lulling us to sleep. It worked on everyone... except Joe and me. 

We rolled into the North Chicago High School parking lot with light rain and distant fog. Ragnarians dotted the school grounds in sleeping bags - some pressed into doorways trying to avoid the rain, others boldly slumped in the middle of lawns and one lone person under a bench. A long walk led us to Port-o-Potties literally filled to the brim with human waste. A few hours later they would be shut down. With time to kill, a desire to be out of the van and most of our team craving eggs, we drove to a nearby IHOP, where a gracious waitress also let us change and clean up a bit in the restaurant bathrooms. 

More vans populated the high school parking lot in our absence, including our very own Van 1 (actually a Suburban). With our full team reunited, disjointedly catching up on the most recent highlights, the temperatures and humidity began to rise, setting the stage for a sweaty final run.

Rolf kicked off Van 2's 3rd and final leg around 10:00 a.m. Our van traveled from exchange to exchange through the expensive sylvan neighborhoods of Lake Forest, Highland Park, Glencoe and Winnetka, until we arrived in Kenilworth for my Leg 3. Jaime passed me the slap band at 12:32p.m., and I began my final 5.15 mile jaunt, running past multi-million dollar homes in Wilmette, IL. At this point I'd been fully awake for over 30 hours, temps were soaring into the mid-70's and the air was getting steamy, yet this was my strongest leg, clocking a pace 14 seconds per mile faster than my first fresh leg 19 hours ago. I glided through gorgeous wealthy neighborhoods where the streets were made of red bricks, where trees were mature and plentiful (shade!) and where each house offered special unique designs. 

Eventually, the neighborhoods connected me to the Northwestern University campus in Evanston, IL. Rounding a corner, I entered sunny stroke acres - nary a tree to be found along a boulevard next to the Northwestern Stadium. With the sun blazing, I wanted to take a break, but our team was running quite a bit ahead of schedule, and I didn't want to let the team down by reducing our gains. It was then that collegiate football players, finished with practice, came streaming down the block. They rallied me with cheers, "get after it!", "looking good!", "keep going, girl!" My shuffle shifted into high gear with heels kicking towards my butt. It was not a sustainable pace, especially in the heat of the day, but I would just take a quick break when I turned the next corner, out of the sight of the players. Well, around the corner was a street light at the end of the block, with the flashing crosswalk countdown. I could see I would hit a red light in 16 seconds, so there was no rest for the weary - I kept my pace alive as I had to add to our team's lead. 

Running Along the Northwestern Campus

At long last, I could see a yellow tent in the distance - the very last exchange of this crazy Ragnar weekend, where Joe would be ready to run 7.7 miles to the finish line on Montrose Beach in the heart of Chicago. My leg ended with 7 kills, the majority of them in the final 2 miles as I picked off the runners who ran too hard, too fast for the weather conditions.

Joy Making the Final Pass of the Race to Joe

And Joe Strides Off the Northwestern Campus

As Joe sprinted off, I was shepherded into the van. We had to hurry if we were to catch Joe at the finish. The word from Van 1 was that Chicago traffic was hellacious. In theory, all 11 team members are at the finish line waiting for Runner 12 to bring it home. As that final runner, in this case, Joe, becomes visible, the entire team starts running (in their specially made team shirts) together, crossing the finish line as one. Unfortunately, Joe only had Van 1 teammates trailing him across the finish. Stuck in traffic, having to park a mile away, we missed him by about 15 minutes. From this we have learned not to have the fastest runner be the final runner ☺ Joe secured his legend status with 28 kills in this last leg, and more impressively, he was not passed by anyone, AND he passed 2 ultra runners (ultra runners are super fast people who do this race as a team of 6 instead of 12 - covering more miles faster than most 12-member teams do). Van 2 ended with 228 road kills - 1/3 of them contributed by Joe. We were a kickass van!

Back Row: Rolf, Jen, Scott, Tammy, Joe, Dan
Front Row: Leslie, Amanda, Rosanna, Kathy, Joy, Rachel, Bobbi

The Backs of Our Medals Spell Something Out

AFTERWORD
Team Serenity Now! chilled on the beach for a couple hours before heading home. The beach was alternately hot and cold, sunny and foggy, breezy and still. Rosanna, Joe and I headed towards the shoreline to snag a couple pictures when a professional Ragnar photographer asked to take our picture and to borrow one of our medals. Joe obliged, the medal was jammed in the sand, a picture snapped and we were on our way. Little did we know that the picture of the 3 of us would make the national Ragnar Relay Facebook site, nor that Joe's medal in the sand would become the most chosen picture for the post-race finishers logo!

Rosanna, Me, Joe - the Picture Used on the National Site

Joe's Medal!

Results: There were 356 teams in our division (Mixed/Regular - other divisions included all male, masters, etc.). We placed 142nd, finishing in 30 hours, 20 minutes and 25 seconds with an average team pace of 9:20 minute miles! The team that came in 1st overall, across all divisions, was Team Nuun, a group of lithe young men who ran shirtless, completing the course in 18 hours, with an average team pace of 5:41!

Shortly after arriving home Saturday night, we learned the Ragnar course, which would be open through midnight, had to shut down due to lightening. Teams that had yet to finish were told to stop, but would still be issued medals. We were fortunate to see the relay to the end - who wants a medal without fully earning it? Joe and I finally hit the sheets after being up for 40 hours and collectively running nearly 35 miles in an 18-hour span. 

My ho-hum shrug when asked about this race prior to doing it morphed into an enthusiastic high-fiving, emphatic "YEAH!" during and after the event. This was the most fun I've had in a long time. Every single minute of the experience was exceptional, far exceeding expectations! A true YOLO moment.