Ragnar Relay PA Recap: Part III

Finally! We come to end of my ridiculously long recap. Apologies to those who were so over this three days ago. This is the final part, I promise! Picking up from where we left off...

I awoke from my two hour post-2 am half marathon coma around 5:30 am, just as we were pulling into the last major exchange at a local high school. First thought: running water and soap!!!!!!!!!!

Indoor plumbing! Yes!

We all staggered into the high school, only to be greeted by a super peppy group of students directing us towards the sleeping area, shower room, and breakfast line. Mike headed directly for the school gym, which has been blacked out for sleeping. I found him several trips to the bathroom later after I changed and scrubbed my face until it fell off. I tried to sleep more, but alas, after 25+ miles my stomach was screaming at me to eat.

Eventually, after two of our team members grabbed a shower and the rest grabbed some sleep, we met in the cafeteria before heading out to wait for van #1. I thought of taking a shower, but then, what really is the point, when I was about to get gross all over again during my last leg.

DO feed the runners!

Sally and I had really added to our team's time during our slow nighttimes legs, so it was no surprise when van #1 didn't show up until 10:30 am. The looked so happy to be done! They looked even happier when they found out the could take showers (and they didn't have other legs to run, so they could stay clean indefinitely)!

Van #1: DONE!

Meanwhile we sent Kevin off to start our last rotation. He had 10 gruelling miles in front of him, and an achilles tendon that had not been cooperating. By this time we were fully into the mountain range and out of flat Amish country.


Kevin's last leg - I think it was the worst of them all and we all cried for him

To top off the ridiculousness of this leg, he also got lost, adding another 1.5 miles onto his total :(

We caught up with him a few times including the summit where we cheered him on and assured him it was all down hill from there (or so we thought).

At the summit of Kevin's leg

Those white buildings allll the way down there are Jim Thorpe - Kevin ran up the other side of the mountain and now had to descend to the bottom of it on the other side into that town

Runners coming through! - get outta the way segways!

While driving down to the next exchange to wait for him we passed through the town of Jim Thorpe, which has got to be the cutest place ever! Mike and I decided we need to do a weekend trip there sometime in the future.

Funny thing about this elevation maps: you tend to focus on the MONSTER hill that takes up the whole profile. You forget about the OTHER uphill at the end of the profile because hey, let's face it, it doesn't look nearly as bad. Yeah right...

The last mile of Kevin's leg

After Kevin finished there was still one more runner before my last leg. I was NOT looking forward to running at all. Technically it would be my shortest one, at only 9.4 miles, but it was getting hot out and my body was really hurting. The whole no real sleep thing wasn't helping either.

When I finally got going it felt even worse than I thought it would. I was barely shuffling along. Luckily I had a mostly downhill course, but it was long and ended up being on some really rocky trail, which didn't help my already blistered and bruised feet.

The van stopped for me at mile 3 and 6 to give me water. I was seriously thirsty the whole time, but couldn't bear to carry water with me since it was so sweaty out. This whole last rotation was very interesting because all of sudden we were seeing lots and lots of other runners. It seems the mountains were slowing everyone down. This means there were also a lot of other vans on the road and many of them stopped to offer me water, food, and even a foam roller for my calves.

OUCH!

Finally, the "1 mile to go" marker came. It didn't make me feel any better though. It still seemed so far away. Ahead of me was a long stretch of highway going down and then directly back uphill. Great. An uphill to the finish is the last thing I need.

All of a sudden I saw our van coming from the opposite direction toward me. It was Mike! He had dropped everyone off at the exchange and came back to see if I was okay (ie. I was going so slow they probably thought I died). When he got out of the car I started crying. I was exhausted and felt like death. I didn't see how I could possibly make it another 0.8 miles. He gave me a hug and some water and told me he'd see me at the end and I could do it. After almost 9 miles of hell it was exactly what I needed.

I really didn't want to start crying in front of everyone (also I didn't really think I'd have the physical capability to shed tears after that many miles), but as I approached the exchange 20 feet away the tears just started coming. I sprinted through the exchange as best as I could before I completely broke down and fell into Mike's arms. It was by far the best moment of the entire event.

Check off another milestone on this girl's list! After some other runners came over to congratulate me I headed to the van to do one final thing:

34.5 miles for the win!

After I collected myself there was nothing left to do but cheer on our last runners!

Finally, a little over 30 hours after we started, just afetr 5:30 pm, Shannon ran into the finish area. I didn't think I'd be able to run across the finish line as I could barely manage to walk, but I took off my flipflops and jogged with my teammates in the fresh, cool grass across the finish line. Woohooooooooo!

We ended up finishing 30th out of 96 teams. That's wayyy better than I anticipated! Total finish time: 30 hours, 13 minutes, 33 seconds. 

Fake energy

After obligatory team photos we all dashed hobbled to the food cart for our free food. Two hot dogs and a coca cola never tasted so good (ps. I totally get why ultra runners have soda at their aid stations)!

The thing about running 200 miles into the Poconos is that you have to drive 200 some miles home. Oops! Forgot about that! I finally dragged myself home and into the shower around midnight before passing out for 11 straight hours. It is only now, 4 days later, that I feel fully recovered.

Final Thoughts:

• Running and carpooling with complete strangers is really the only way to do a Ragnar. I LOVE all of these people!
• Another relay is definitely in the future. Cape Cod? Adirondacks? Anyone?
• Next time I will sleep over in a hotel near the finish line, drive back the next day, and take Monday off
• Love, love, love, love, love Ragnar!

Ragnar does strange things to a girl