Ragnar

I really need to stop signing up for running events right after I finish one. Last year, after my half marathon, I immediately signed up for the San Francisco Marathon. I had to cancel that one but changed my registration to the marathon in San Luis Obispo this year. And right after that I signed up for the same marathon next year, a half marathon in October, and a relay race from San Francisco to Napa. Not the straight route, 205 miles, 12 runners, each runner running three times. What was I thinking?!

So, a few weeks before the race date, I thought about canceling but then I saw that a few people had already bailed and we were at least one runner short. So I didn't. The week before I thought I would get sick. I felt tired and had a sore throat. But at that time we still hadn't found a runner to replace the missing one and so I really thought I shouldn't bail. And I didn't.

Friday morning, 7am, I showed up at the Caltrain Station in San Francisco, looking for people who looked crazy enough to participate in such an event. Easy to spot at that time and place. Two girls in running gear with backpacks and sleeping bags. No one really knew each other in our van, which turned out to be a 7 seater instead of the promised 12 seater. Which made the whole experience even cosier and turned out to be very convenient especially when it came to finding a parking spot between hundreds of 12 seater vans. And so we went. I called shotgun as I was the first one to run and also the one with the longest legs (physically), next to the driver. So I put on my equipment, drank some more water and prepared myself for the first 2.7 miles. Easy.

Naturally, we found a small parking spot, close to the starting area in Golden Gate Park. Sadly, it was overcast and a little muggy. But that didn't affect our mood at all. We were already half way to the starting area when we realized that we didn't bring the safety equipment we were supposed to present in order to get our race packages. Reflective vests (only useful if they're worn the right way around), butt lights, and headlamps. This was the first clue that our team was a little less organized than we should have been... Later that night we did realize why this equipment was pretty important, still, most of the time we forgot to wear those vests and bring the orange flag needed for crossing streets in the darker hours. We signed in, got a safety and race rules overview and our packages and I was ready to go. That overview, though, missed a number of important items. Such as: Don't let your car's engine run for hours while waiting for your fellow van to arrive at the, granted, pretty hot exchange area. California is a f***ing desert. Deserts are hot! Deal with it or move to Alaska! Anyway, the other useful tips would have been: Check that your at the right exchange and Do Not blind fellow runners with your headlamps or headlights at the sleeping areas. Or generally.

And then it was 8.30am, and I was on my way. Downhill to Ocean Beach, uphill along Cliff House. A short run and I was way faster than my estimated 10.25 minutes/mile. So, when I arrived at the finish line, I couldn't find the next runner. At least, I had the phone number of the driver but when I dialed in, I got one of the most frequent messages from t-mobile: NO SERVICE. Duuuuuh. Turned our, my team was already there, just not quite ready. 5 minutes later, the next runner was on his way and we were learned our first lessons: Get to the next exchange as quickly as possible and ignore the sandbagging of the runners (10.25 minutes/mile on 2.7 miles, seriously?). And that we did.

And there we waited a few minutes. The second leg was a little longer and included the nasty hill from Presidio all the way up to the Golden Gate Bridge. And once you get on the bridge, there's still 1.5 miles slightly uphill. This time the exchange worked better. I was ready to go on my next short leg. All the way, downhill, to Sausalito. After that, I had the day off until evening.

So we ran until we ran out of runners and met the other van at the exchange. Then we got lunch and talked to each other a little bit more. There was a physical therapist who refused to give us massages because, she was "not at work". Makes sense. An FBI agent that made us feel save and very confident in case we should run over a red light, rushing to meet our runner at the next exchange. The driver had originally agreed to do the driving because a bunch of his friends wanted to participate. But they all bailed so he only knew one person on the bus. Well, now he knew all of them.

The afternoon we spent in a large parking lot at the next van exchange. Surrounded by hundreds of other vans, most of them had their engine running so they could sit in their air conditioned cars. Which didn't help reducing the heat and gave half of us carbon monoxide poisoning. If you can't stand the heat, don't live in the desert!

At this point, I really want to call out the porta potties along the course. No one likes porta potties. Especially when they're almost full and the previous visitor let the lid open for you to admire the huge "chocolate cake" when you open the door. But the Honey Pots, despite their sticky name, were perfectly clean with a slight whiff of disinfectant greeting you when entering the immaculate facility. Many times you even got to break into a brand new roll of toilet paper. After the third run, all sweaty and stinky, I swear I could see the porta potty crinkle its nose when I opened the door to come inside.

Anyway, on to the next 6 legs we went. We had already realized that the other van had gotten the shitty end of the stick. They had to run all through the night and the heat of the day. While we got mornings and evenings. And then I was back on. My longest leg, 6.7 miles through the dusk and partly the dark in the early evening. I did have a look at the course map before and thought it was a relatively easy piece. Hardly any elevation climb. Just a run along the highway. But then the hill started and wouldn't end. Not a steep incline but steady and never ending, it seemed. Turned out, I had looked at the wrong leg map. Not the last time that should happen... Running along the highway in the darkness, some runners in front, some behind me was kind of a surreal experience. It reminded me of the Burning Man exodus. Tiny moving red lights ahead, all those butt lights swinging back and forth, moving white lights from the headlamps behind me.

Again, the fact that my team was waiting for me at the finish line made me run a lot faster than I had in a while. And I was done for the day until early in the morning. I changed into dry clothes, got my sleeping bag and curled up on the back seat of the car. But only for a few moments until we got to In N Out Burger for dinner.

From there to the next meeting point with the other van. And again we were the only ones outside in the dark, not wearing our vests and bringing our reflective flag. So unorganized and rebellious we were :-).

And finally, we reached our sleeping area. It's been a while, since I had slept on the bare ground without an air mattress or mat. Outside of a campground. I had picked a spot right next to our van, literally 3 meters away. Assuming, that my van mates would have no problem spotting me, I didn't bother to set my alarm clock and I even switched my phone on airplane mode. A quarter to 5am I notice some commotion at the van and eventually, I got up and walked over. As it turned out, our next runner was already on her way and we'd almost slept through the arrival of the other van. And no one knew where I was... Luckily, our runner made it to the exchange, a second before the other runner got there. Of course she was still sleepy. As was runner #2, who was on just shortly after her. Given that her leg was just three miles long and she was fast, we ran around the vans like headless chicken, trying to gather all of the next runner's equipment and make sure we get to the exchange in time. The last item that was missing was his breakfast, a granola bar. He wasn't able to find it. As I was next after him, I had just unpacked my last peanut butter jelly sandwich and was about to eat it. Given he had the longer leg to run, I took a long hard look at the sandwich in my hand, said goodbye and handed it over to him.

Now that we had a little more time until the next exchange, we stopped to get a coffee and then drove to the next stop to make sure we'd have enough time to prepare for the handover of the baton. And in fact, we reached the exchange about twenty minutes before we expected our runner to show up. And waited. And waited. After an hour of waiting our driver decided to drive back and search for our runner. And came back a few minutes later to tell us that we had been waiting at the wrong exchange. Our runner had finished his run 45 minutes before and as he didn't bring his phone, he had had no way to reach us. And we had no clue. Though, turned out, there had been plenty of them:

The clues:

1. We had no issues finding parking at the exchange although the Ragnar info material stressed that you should arrive as late as possible due to limited parking available.
2. The porta potties were untouched. The only thing missing was the "New" seal on the door to break in. Granted, that was not an easy clue, given that most of the "Honey Pots" were immaculate and made you want to move in or at least take a quick nap in there.
3. No volunteers at exchange. Though, who'd be able to distinguish them from runners at 6.30am in the foggy dawn anyway?
4. Mosquitos
5. Ultra runners at exchange. Our team would have been investigated for using illegal, performance enhancing substances, if we'd been that fast.
6. Mysterious phone calls on Paul's phone. On a Sunday morning. Before 7am. Twice...
7. Mosquitos. A lot of them.
8. Runners who sprinted across the finish line after an, that's what we thought, 8.3 mile run.
9. More mosquitos. Biting us everywhere. By now each of us had killed at least 10 of them.
10. No sign of our runner after an hour of waiting which would have translated into him running an 11-12 minute mile. And him being 75 years old...
11. When I took a closer look a couple of days laster and connected the dots, ie. the mosquito bites, they spelled: "Wrong exchange!". I swear...

Well, we drove back to the previous exchange as fast as possible, I jumped out of the van and ran to the exchange point and then as fast as I could with my heavy itching legs. And I actually ran my fastest average pace ever. Granted, it was only 3.3 miles but when I crossed the finish line with an average 8 minute/miles I almost vomited right there.

The last exchanges went uneventful. I was done and felt like I could have run a few more and longer legs. After we had picked up our last runner, we did what people usually do in Napa: drink wine and eat! While the other van ran their long last legs through the Napa heat.

I gotta say that, this was a really great experience and I really want to do this again next year. Like with everything, the second time is probably the best because you can prepare yourself so much better! Bring more or less items, be on time at exchange points and, first of all: READ the material.