Go, you chicken fat, go away!

Time: 45:11 (avg. pace 8:01)

Splits: 1 mile - 7:46, 2 mile - 7:52, 3 mile - 8:05, 4 mile - 8:23, 5 mile - 8:15, 0.64 miles - 4:51 (7:38min./mi. avg.)

Finish time: 8am (I should be at work right now.)

Temp: 62

I wanted to keep my pace under 8, but didn't quite make it.  I've also been forced to say that my wife is not a slave driver.  Now, it's off to my flogging.

Time: 23:34 (avg. pace 7:51)

Splits: 1 mile - 7:47, 2 mile - 8:04, 3 mile - 7:43

Finish time: 7:45am

Temp: 55

I think this will be my last run before Ragnar.

RAGNAR!!!  This is what I live for.  The one race I look forward to all year.  You see, racing hurts.  Ragnar hurts.  It hurts bad.  But the difference is, you have 11 friends rooting you on the whole time.  And that helps.  This is the race that got me back into running.  It's the race that changed my unhealthy lifestyle.  I owe my life to Ragnar.  (Cheesy enough?)

One week before the race I get a phone call from the wife of our fastest team member.  She tells me that his back is bothering him, and he hasn't been able to run for two weeks.  That got me worried.  The next day, he called and said he's still going to try and make it, and he wants to run 5:45 mi/min.  That relieved my worries.  Then Tuesday he calls and says it's a no-go.  Dang!  Who can I find now?  I start making phone calls, asking people on the blog, asking members of Athlinks.  Finally I asked a guy that ran with me last year.  He hadn't even been training, but he said he'd do it.  So awesome.

The day before the race I get another phone call.  No!  Jared and Michelle Cox from the other van, the ones that started this madness two years ago, said that they couldn't do it.  Michelle has a severely handicapped sister.  They were told she didn't have much time to live.  Sure enough, she passed away early the next morning.  (For more on the story, see tomorrow's entry.)  So now the whole team was scrambling to find two more runners.  15 hours to go!!  Is it possible?  Of course.  This is Ragnar, baby!  The spirit of Ragnar won't let us down.  Janna from the other van got a friend to run for their van.  He had to skip out on his classes.  Then Bethany from our van got her brother to join up.  The only problem was that he had to work, so he couldn't run his first leg.  We called and got permission for the Animal James W to run that leg.  Now we were set.  Van #2 consisted of myself, Bethany, her brother Christian, Glen from last year's race, and two fellow FRB-er's, Camille, and James W.

We drive up to the First Major Exchange point, and who do I spot?  This red-hot pink chick that is none other than the birthday girl herself, Kelli.  Also in her van from the FRB was her husband Scott (Kelli says he has a blog, but I've yet to see it),  the infamous Walter, and Walter's wife, Misty.  It was great seeing them in person.

We decorated our van and got ready to run.  Our other van managed to get ahead of our predicted pace by about 20 minutes.  (They had all the downhill.)  James was going to run this first leg as a warm-up leg, but adrenaline got the better of him.  He smoked it and put us way ahead of pace.  Everybody else was running right on.

Leg 11

Finally it was my turn.  I started about 10 minutes after the 5:30pm night time start, so I had to wear the reflective vest, headlamp, and tail light.  I didn't really need to turn them on because it was still visible out most of the time.  I tried to finish in time to give James a little bit of daylight, but there wasn't much left when I got there.  My goal was to average 8:15's.  I knew it would be hard because the last three miles were uphill.  I hoped I could make up the time in the first 5 miles.  I started out running the first two miles under an 8 min. pace.  About half a mile into it I got passed by 4 guys all at once.  I thought, "This is ridiculous.  I'm running a 7:30 avg. and  I'm getting passed.  Well, all these guys are going to burn out at mile 5, and I'll catch them."  That never happened.  For the first two miles I was running about 70 feet behind this lady.  I finally pulled up alongside of her, and we chatted for a while.  She was a Mamatukee, a team of over 30 year old mothers from Ahwatukee.  We ran together for about 2 miles and then she left me in the dust.  Literally, because the entire leg was on a dirt road.  The best part was the stream that we had to cross.  I had been forewarned that it was there and told my team to be ready with trash bags for me to step into, but I beat them to it.  So I had to take a few steps in the water and run with wet feet.  No big deal.  A van had gotten stuck in the mud here, and Camille's husband, Brandon, pulled him out.  He thrives on that kind of stuff.  So best mile : 7:30, worst mile : 9:47.  Didn't hit my goal, but was okay with it.  See tomorrow's entry for the remainder of the race report.

Leg 23

Can you say freezing head wind?  What the heck was this?  Why me?  Why?  Nobody else had to run in the freezing wind.  Just me.  I knew this was going to be tough, so I predicted a pace of 8:30.  Little did I know I would be fighting the wind the whole time.  There comes a time in every race I've done over 10 miles when I ask myself, "What am I doing?  I don't belong here.  No amount of bragging rights is worth pain I'm going through for not being in the proper shape I need to be."  I started to doubt Ragnar.  Maybe I should hang it up after this race.  It is getting kind of expensive.  It's a logistical nightmare.  It's hard.  But then I gut it out, and it isn't long before I remember why I keep coming back.

This was a 6.4 mile leg.  The first 4.4 were uphill into the wind.  The last two were 2 miles downhill into the wind.  It didn't really feel like downhill, and I was cursing Paul Peterson's name most of the time.  Best mile : 8:53, worst mile : 10:19 (my one and only mile over a 10 min. pace.)  I think the best part of this leg was running behind someone named Shawn for a little bit without him knowing.  There must have been a pause in his IPOD because all the sudden I scared the begeebeez out of him.

After James finished running for our van came the real hard part: getting to Camille's house without falling asleep.  Camille lives right close to another guy's house that was on my team last year.  It was perfect going to his house before our last set of legs to shower and rest.  So we decided to do the same thing at Camille's house, but they changed the course this year.  No matter.  It was still worth it for the warm shower that was oh so much better than the cold tent shower in the gravel a few hours earlier.  Plus Brandon made us waffles.  That hit the spot.  I also went and filled up the tank with gas again.  Finally after eating and showering, I went to the van and caught a few winks.

Leg 35

Only three miles to go.  This is where I hoped to make up for lost time.  But guess what.  Now the hot Arizona sun was out.  I go from freezing to burning.  Whatever.  I could tell the sun was affecting all of us.  Christian had about a three mile run.  The first two mile had to be the steepest section of the course.  But that last mile coming downhill was amazing.  I swear he ran a sub 4.  Poor Glen.  The guy who hadn't run in months had the 8 mile run.  He gutted it out.  I kept telling him if he needed to quit, I'd take over for him.  It became a moral victory for him to finish it all.  Camille struggled.  I think the heat and her knee caught up to her.  Then I started my last three miles.  I grabbed a bottle of water and told my team just to meet me at the next exchange.  This was just going to be like a loop around my neighborhood.  I wish.  It was hot!  Funny how it gets hotter as the day goes on.  But I didn't feel too bad.  I stayed alive, and that was the most important thing.  First mile - 7:51, second mile - 9:02, third mile - 8:59.

The best part of this section of the race was when I got word that Michelle had come out and was running with some of our teammates in the other van.  Yep.  That's against the rules, but anyone that wants to penalize us for having our actual team captain come out to get her mind off recent events (see yesterday's entry), is one heartless SOG.  I gave her the biggest hug in the history of hugs.

Overall we came in 59th place.  I was hoping for another top 25% finish, but we barely missed it.  But with all the changes to the team at the last minute, I'll take it.  To see everyone at the finish line together was awesome.  And now I remember why I keep doing this every year.