Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Robert's Ragnar

This last weekend was the big Ragnar race for Robert.  He looks forward to it every year.  Last year after the race, he was so excited about it he signed up to do the Ragnar in Nevada (around Mead Lake I think) and then even looked into doing the Ragnar in Washington while he was up there too.  He planned his trip around the race.  He will be doing the Northwest Passage (Ragnar race in Washington) again this year.  Again, we planned our trip around it. 

This is the half of the team that was together in the car.

While he was gone running for 2 days I had a last minute idea for Father's day and spent the 2 days working almost non-stop.  That will be a post for later with pictures hopefully (since Robert had my camera at the race, I only had my phone so I am not sure how the pictures will turn out.)

Here is their car.... all decorated.
For those of you who aren't familiar with the Ragnar, it is a 12 person team that takes turns running.  It is relay style so you have a slap bracelet kind of thing that you pass off to the next person.  They have these exchange places all set up where you meet your next runner ready to go.  Then that person runs to the next exchange and then passes off to the awaiting runner.  You have to run 3 different times, and the sections of the race are ranged from easy to very difficult based on distance and elevation change.  You have to stay in the same order and if for some reason one person gets hurt or can't finish their portion then someone else can run in place of them but from then on they have to be the proxy for that person everytime they are suppose to run. 

Normally you have 2 cars, with 6 runners in each car.  Robert really likes doing this race, he has a lot of fun.  I volunteered for the NW Passage Ragnar that goes from the city just barely south of the Canada border (Blaine) to Langley, WA that is on one of the islands (Whidby) in the Puget Sound area...  It has to be a pretty amazing race with the scenery and all.  When Robert does that race he is on a Ultra Team that is a 6 person team instead of a 12 person team.  Instead of running one section you run two in a row and then pass off to the next runner who then runs 2 as well before passing off.  You end up running longer distance.  Last year they had a guy not show up so they ended up doing it with 5 people... Robert was suppose to run 25 miles, and he was a little nervous about it but ended up running I 40 miles in the 2 days.   This year hopefully they have all 6 people show up.  He was so beat last year running all those miles. 

Does anyone else run the Ragnar? 

2 comments:

Amy Sorensen said...

oooooh....oh so jealous! My sister ran it this year, but as we were on Trek, I couldn't come. That's OK. I'm determined to do it next year.

Congrats, Robert!!!

** Adrian ** said...

I am so in awe at this!! I have a bunch of friends that do it-- I don't know how they do! Running seems so impossible to me. I think it is amazing, though!!