San Diego or Bust!

Goooood morning! As of 5:30 am PST, we are officially en route to San Diego, via miles and miles of road, sidewalk, beach trails and highway shoulders through an adventure called Ragnar So Cal. 

Team #SWAGNARstrikesback got started with Marco, one of our first-timers (!), leading us off. I'm in Van 2, so I have time to chill and cheer people on as we get set. I'm also runner 11, so even once Van 2 starts, I've got a bit of a wait ahead of me. I've been in Van 1 enough that I'm used to having the fun early on in the day, so this will be a challenge in controlling my antsyness in wanting to get started already! Yipes!

Follow the team along at #SWAGNARstrikesback  + cheer us along! Be sure to also follow me for all the in-between fun too: @runmeganrun // @__MeganJohnston // Run Megan Run

A Ragnar Packing List

Running a Ragnar relay is unlike any other race experience you've ever had. While your team has a start time, the time you actually start running might be one, five, eight hours later, so you're kind of all-day prepping for a race start. You could run at 8 am and 3 the same afternoon and then again at midnight, so how do you fuel up? When do you sleep (spoiler: not much, if at all). 

There are enough logistics to throw a race-day-prepper for a total loop, so how on earth do you keep yourself straight when you're out of whack with your normal race morning prep? My best advice: make sure you've got it all - everything you'll definitely need, everything you think you'll need, and everything that you've never thought about needing because at some point, it will come in handy. Trust me. 

I created this Ragnar packing list for you to help keep yourself straight for 20-something hours of fun. Link leads to downloadable PDF - share away, I just ask that you keep my handle and info on the page if you share/re-post the images! 

Downloadable here. 

That's about it. I'll also add to the Van Supplies a food list for your team. Consider community snackage over everyone bringing their own thing (and therefore more coolers). Team essentials will vary team to team, but I've always found myself with tons of leftover snackage for drives/flights home, which is never a bad thing in my book. Better to have too much food that to wake up starving in a van driving through Maryland countryside at 2 am with nothing open, right? 

Good luck on your Ragnar adventure!  

It's Ragnar Week!

Ragnar So Cal 2016

It's Ragnar week! I'm pretty much giddy - while the team has been coming together for a few months, it's like it's finally time to get my ish together and get ready for another ridiculous running adventure 

through Southern California. This is my fifth Ragnar, but only second time running So Cal:

Washington, DC (2012)

So Cal (2014)

Napa (2014)

Del Sol (2015) <-- apparently I never got as far as writing a recap! 

I love Ragnar and everything about it basically. Run, eat, sleep?, repeat is pretty much the only way I'd like to spend a weekend! Even though it's my fifth, there are some new quirks to this Ragnar that I'm anticipating, but am stoked about. 

First of all, meet the team! We are mostly from our running club, IERC, who is fielding like 8 teams in So Cal this year, which is huge and awesome. We are team #SWAGNAR Strikes Back, a team reincarnated from a few team members from last year, just with a new theme, and a lot of us that are new to the Swagnar fam. 

• Jacky, Nikkie, Jack, Kristine and John were part of #Swagnar last year.
• Jacky, Nikkie and Darrell are also high school friends! 
• I've gotten to know Nikkie through some races and Darrell through plenty of Mad T excursions at Disneyland. 
• Carla's boyfriend is Juan.
• Mayara's husband is Jesse. 
• Darrell, Marco, Jesse and Juan are all Ragnar first-timers! They are in for an adventure of a lifetime, that's for sure! 
• Mayara's also our speedy Boston-bound team member - woot! 

We've got a good team ahead and I am way excited for another venture down the coast. As runner 11, I'll be running about 22 miles, which is perfectly in line with where I need and want to be for OC training, so I'm pretty pumped about how that shaped up. 

Bring on the week of packing, laundry, re-packing, more packing, last-minute Amazon orders (yay Prime!), and getting our ish together on Thursday for an early morning start in Huntington Beach! We start at 5:30 am on Friday, and anticipate a mid-afternoon finish on Saturday afternoon.

Follow the team along at #SWAGNARstrikesback  + cheer us along! Be sure to also follow me for all the in-between fun too: @runmeganrun // @__MeganJohnston // Run Megan Run

Who else is running Ragnar So Cal this year? Make sure you leave your team name and runner # so I can track you down! 

Ragnar Del Sol: Part 1

Ragnar Del Sol | Wickenburg to Mesa, Arizona

February 20 - 21

Team Del Sol Sisters

My bestie, Tina, jumped on a Ragnar Del Sol team a few months ago... and apparently this team just couldn't hold on to folks because sooner rather than later, she had two more fabulous running friends on board (Erica and Mandy)... and not even a week before the race, I had an offer, too. Honestly, Ragnar is a great time but I wasn't sure it was in the books for me this year, but this offer was pretty financially amazing (I paid for van rental, gas, and my team shirts) and it was too hard to turn down. Perks to being unemployed? I can jump and go when I want.

Thursday I subsitute taught all day and at the first chance to get out after dismissal, I hopped in the car and beelined for the car rental facility (thankfully, not far) to pick up my car and hit the road. Without thinking that it was a Thursday afternoon at 4 pm, I hit monster traffic all the way through Palm Springs, and was already antsy to get to Tina's house.

Stateline! Woot!

Amazingly, I still made it in about five hours, but with the time change, I didn't get to Tina's driveway until just after 10 pm. With a 2:30 am alarm clock, I pretty much rolled in, got my stuff organized for the morning, and passed out.

Like I said, our alarm clocks were set wayyy too early - a 2:30 am wake up call so we could get up, get our stuff together, pack the van, and be on our way by 3:15 am for the hour drive to Wickenburg. Out the driveway at 3:12 am - are we good or what? We made it to Wickenburg in just about an hour, also right on tap, and in time to get me situated, fed, and dressed for our 5 am start time. As Runner #1, I was the one that really needed to be ready to go that early - lucky me!

Have I mentioned Wickenburg is kind of the middle of nowhere?

And that this middle of nowhere, desert town is really, really cold at 4 am in the middle of February? It was beyond freaking cold, but being the brilliant person I am, I brought one pair of pants to lounge in, and nothing longer than shorts to run in because in my head, "Oh, it's Arizona! I won't freeze." Wrong.

So I froze until start time. To further add to the mess, my Garmin died as soon as I hit 'Locate,' despite being charged all of Wednesday night (or so I thought). Frustrating to say the least, but luckily my rockstar teammate Erica let me use her Nike band.... until we realized its memory was full! What a weekend for technology!

So at 5:06 am, we were off! Bright dark and early, along with probably 25 other teams. Leg 1 was 8.6 miles, with a pretty nasty incline throughout:

Not a hard incline, just a long, treacherous one through dark desert hills. It got to me more than I had hoped it would, but I still knocked out 8.72 miles in 1:27 and change, just two minutes over my projected time and a 10:00 minute pace overall. I wasn't super happy with my first leg, but knew that it could only get better from there, right?! Right.

I had also hoped that my leg would get me some stellar views of the sunrise, but it actually worked in my favor that sunrise didn't hit until after my leg was over so I could enjoy it even more. Toni's leg was flat and gave her full view of the sun peeking over the cacti and brush, and left me seriously in awe of what I had woken up so early for. Arizona wins at sunrises, hands down, y'all.

The day was surprisingly cool, and just about any time I was outside the van, I had a hoodie on, if not pants and a hoodie too. Who knew Arizona actually had cool weather? I kid, I kid. Runner after runner, cowbell after cowbell... soon, it felt like we'd been going at it for hours and hours. Toni finished her first leg, then Mandy, Erica, Alicia, and soon enough we were on to Tina's first leg to wrap up the first round for Van 1!

We sent Tina on her way and made our way to the first major exchange to meet Van 2. Mind you, aside from the Facebook group, I literally hadn't met anyone in person, as I had missed van decorating fun the night before since I drove in so late! So I was excited to actually meet everyone - our captain, Stacy, and Olivia, Molly, Angie, Camie (runner turned drive due to injury) and Dawn! It was finally coming together - it's nice to meet people and see faces rather than just profile photos!

Del Sol Sisters, minus 1.

Tina came flying in (that girl ran her fastest mile EVER in the first mile of her leg, mind you!) and we got our team photo, amidst some chaos with the photographer, so really the 'team' photo turned into a team of 11, or 7, or 8, depending which version you've got. Hilarious. At any rate, we said our quick 'hi's' and 'byes' to Van 2, and we got our selves re-situated, out of the dust bowl of a parking lot, and on to our most coveted destination: FOOD. Chipotle on tap, which is pretty much the best post-long-run food ever and we were beyond excited. So excited, our van 1 photo had to wait until after food so we were all happy enough to smile...

And just like that, it was on to the next major exchange for a little downtime... but more on that soon!

Did you run Ragnar Del Sol?

Unexpected Adventures

So, somehow I've found myself on a Ragnar team. As of last Friday, officially. For a Ragnar that starts... tomorrow.

I mean, realistically, this is probably not shocking. Tina has been on a team with her local Moms Run this Town group (or at least what started this way). Over the last few weeks, they've had a number of runners fall in and out of the rotation. Someone just pulled out last week after having some PF issues and bam - the offer was thrown my way.

Phoenix is far enough but close enought that this isn't a stretch for me to be able to do -  not to mention, (nearly) the entire team is based there, so there's no extra lodging costs at all either! And, compared to a plane ticket, travel is cheap. I call it a win.

We'll be running from wild west Wickenburg (re: middle of nowhere) all the way up and around the north side of Phoenix, way out east, and then back in towards Tempe. Save for a few good hills (also known as my entire first leg), this is pretty flat in comparison to a lot of other Ragnars I've done so far.

I've joked that I don't want to repeat Ragnars until I've done them all - DC, So Cal, and Napa were a blast, but I'm excited to conquer a new one too! I'm excited to be runner 1 - better yet, excited to be in Van 1 over Van 2 (I'm still under the theory that Van 1 gets a lot more rest), we're driving ourselves (yes, that's a bonus in my book), and get to run with Tina, Erica, and Mandy again!

Ragnar Del Sol, here I come! I'm off this afternoon sometime to make way to Phoenix. I'll get there super late (8-9 pm), and we are out the door at 3 am to get to Wickenburg for our 5 am start. Needless to say, I'm already going to start Ragnar on a very, very tired foot. But that's how Ragnar goes, amiright?

Are you rocking with me at Ragnar Del Sol this weekend?

Ragnar Napa Valley: Part 4

Ragnar Napa Valley

September 19 - 20, 2014

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

I figured this was worth waiting for because we JUST got our Napa medals in the mail on Monday... so I've been kind of procrastinating holding out on purpose... but more on that in a sec! We left off on us finally making it through the night (mostly safe, mostly sound), chowing down at a little hole in the wall cafe, and prepping ourselves for Legs 3. After breakfast, we stopped at the store for some last supplies and trekked on to the last major exchange at the Napa Valley Expo.

It was sometime Saturday morning that team captains and vans got a text from Ragnar HQ letting us know that the medal company didn't have the medals completed in time and that there wouldn't be medals at the finish line. To make up for it, they were providing every runner an extra beer ticket and were scrounging in their race trailer for other goodies to have instead. Every runner also got an email. While this a) obviously sucked, b) I was more impressed about their ensuring that everyone knew ahead of time (albeit Saturday morning) so that it wouldn't be a surprise at 8 pm at the finish. Much appreciated, Ragnar.

This place was nuts! Thankfully, it was also super spread out and open so folks were everywhere - on blankets, hanging of their vans, lounging on the side.. literally everywhere. We spent some time lounging, but eventually I think the last day's efforts caught up with us and we tried to get clean-ish, re-organized and mentally prepped for the last legs.

I really have no recollection (because you know, this was like six weeks ago) how long we were at the exchange waiting for our Van 1-ers. Eventually, they showed up and we expected Trista to come in and carry Van 1 home - lucky ducks! I think at this point we were hitting ridiculously delirious but knowing that the end was finally, actually in sight was carrying us through. Van 1 had remembered that we also had pink beads and leis and were spreadingn the Ragnarians Wear Pink love to anyone that would take some - other runners, drivers, and even race volunteers as we thanked them for helping out over the weekend.

Finally, we got to send Tina off! We hung around for an extra photo or two with our Van 1 friends and realized that Tina had a super short leg, so we booked to her exchange... while casually walkingn through the parking lot, we knew she'd be there any minute. Brilliant us didn't think to actually head to the exchange point first, and found that she'd be standing there for a minute or two waiting for us already! Yipes! Sorry Tina...

So we re-created her finish line for her so she had the chance to break the tape too!

One of the things I loved most from So Cal was our crepe paper (and sometimes toilet paper) finish lines, so I made sure that our van carried on the fun again. Success. And then Kate on her last leg through grape vines (practically):

Not the actual leg. But that would be awesome.

My last leg was my longest at 11.4 beastly miles. Though it wasn't as hot as it had been on Friday, it was still stupidly warm. Thankfully, this leg was flat, but it was a looooong stretch all the way up Silverado Trail. Like my other two legs, this one also did not allow for van support, as it is just a 2-lane highway with not much for shoulder space to pull over. Teams were warned that if they were pulled over, there were plenty of police handing out tickets (I saw two cops in 11 miles, mind you).

I took Tina's hand-held bottle (because I'm a genius and forgot mine), my phone and headphones (despite never running with music anymore, I knew I needed it at this point). I had on shorts and a white tank that I knew I was going to ditch at some point on the trail. The white tank didn't even stay on until mile 3, and was in the trash can at mile 5's water station - again, all planned. I didn't even feel in a groove until mile 4 or so, was eternally grateful for the rockstar volunteers at that water station that made me sit for a few moments, refilled my hand-held, and kept the cold water flowing.

Looking over Mumm Winery.

There were tons of wine tours and Ragnar vans that passed, most of which cheered and honked for us, knowing that this leg was quite possibly the worst. I was super self conscious running in just a sports bra down this supremely busy highway but at some point... I just didn't give a damn. It was liberating! All About that Bass also regularly came on my Pandora shuffle and somewhere around miles 7-9, I was regularly dancing and throwing my arms up, excited that the end was near and I'd survived!

Still not sure how this happened... 

Eventually, that magical One Mile to Go sign showed its face and I was ready for it. There was a deceptive turn onto the last road where teams waited at the end of a cul-de-sac. Imagine my surprise when there were all of 3 vans there and hardly anybody! Turns out, teams were running so far behind, Ragnar had asked the last two leg runners to combine - so we drove leg 35, and let off runners 11 and 12 to run the very last leg together to the finish. Understandably, thought I'd be bummed if that had affected me, but Kristin and Jill took it like champs and rocked the last 5 miles together!

One of my favorite people in the world doing my favorite post-run thing ever.

Despite being nearly 8 pm at this point, the finish line was hopping and buzzing just as much as ever. Van 1 had been there for a while, and I forgot that definitely affects you as a Van 2-er (because I don't remember much of that from DC). We found our folks and got ready to rock the last two in and get our team across the finish line!

Done and done! 

When we got through the finish line, we headed to the final station to turn in our things and find out what our make-up medals were. The extremely rude (I'm assuming extremely tired) volunteer slammed down 6 belt buckles and grumbled, "This is all we have left." "6? But there are 12 of us..." "Well, we've got 6 and that's it. Grumble grumble..." The only part of this that worked in our favor is that 6 of us were receiving our Gold Rush medals for completing So Cal and Napa - so we got our gold medals and gave the 6 non-GR folks the belt buckles so they still had something to take home. Despite the rude volunteer, this worked out okay.

When I got home, I emailed Ragnar about the situation, who very graciously sent me 6 more belt buckles and our car decals we never got, all within  a week or so of the race wrapping up. She was awesome and I'm grateful for wonderful folks at Ragnar HQ.

The trifecta is complete! 

I promise, I tried to keep this condensed, but apparently there are a lot more stories out of Napa than any other Ragnar I've done. Hopefully you've enjoyed! 

Ragnar Napa Final Thoughts

- Overall, felt significantly more organized than So Cal

- Though smaller than So Cal, so bear that in mind
- Napa can provide you any kind of weather it wants: it poured in 2013, and was blazing hot in 2014. Prep for either way and/or stalk the weather for like three months leading up to it so you can psych yourself up for it! 

- Beautiful scenery! 

- Disappointed with the medals (duh), but appreciative of Ragnar's proactive approach - minus the rude volunteer, their customer service feedback about the situation was outstanding

- If you're gonna do it, and especially travel a decent way in, stay until Monday so you can go play in vineyards to recuperate on Sunday! 

Have you run Ragnar Napa? Your thoughts?

Ragnar Napa Valley: Part 3

Ragnar Napa Valley

September 19 - 20, 2014

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

I really did not intended this to take a month to get done! Holy wow, time has gotten away from me. Good thing my memory is pretty sharp. 

After my first run, and seeing Jill and Kristin off for their first legs, we found our way finally heading to the major exchange (12). It was really just a massive parking lot, it seemed, but the energy was certainly alive at that point. Deliriousness, I'm thinking. And probably something to do with all the Van 2s dealing with 100+ heat indeces, so it was probably a lot of deliriousness at that point! 

NAU alumni representing!

Heather had prepped me for this one, since it was about dinner time, and that there was a huge shopping complex with a Dick's, Chipotle, oodles of food, and a Whole Foods not far from there. We were happy campers - after a quick emergency compression-sleeve trip to Dick's, a stop at Chipotle, we joined the hoards of people at Whole Foods to grub up and eat dinner, finally! 70% of the parking lot were Ragnar vans, at least. 

After dinner and some essential van cleaning, we headed off to the next exchange to rest (yes), sleep (not so much), and do this... obviously.

Yours truly, apparently the queen of all things Ragnar temporary tattoos. Everyone got marked up, and then we all found our way to our own place to sleep. Tina, Kristin, John and I in the van and Jill, Kim and Kate all went out the grass at the huge community center we were at. The local rugby club was using the showers as a fundraiser, but as I had promised folks, you just hit that point where you'd rather take a 20-minute nap than you would a 5-minute (though hot) shower. I was right. I eventually fell asleep, for maybe two hours or so, and soon enough, Jill, Kate and Kim came back because the sprinklers had gone off! Thankfully they weren't soaked, but wet enough to be unhappy. Apparently the sprinklers had sent a whole ton of folks packing. 

Soon enough, Van 1 had made their way to the exchange, and after a stretch session with the trainer at First Aid, I got ready to head over to the exchange with Tina for her night leg! She was most nervous about this one too, mostly about getting lost, but I promised that as long as she found people to follow, she'd be fine.

At least she had a pretty exchange! They had done all these lights the whole length of the corral... individual lights.

Tina was off. I kid you not, we were following directions, trying to find our way to the exchange, and finally found the madness (it was really just the side of the road in a business complex and not conducive to large vans and runners). We were about to park, and I was going to text her to check on her (she runs with her phone), when I got a call from her! ...that's not good. I couldn't make it out, so we hung up and called back. She had fallen, and cut herself up pretty badly (though how badly she didn't know given that it was 1:45 am and pitch black), so we found our way back to her near her mile 2-ish. Turns out, the trail/sidewalk had combined, and got loose and she tripped and appeared to have skidded on her hand - her palm was torn up, fingers road rashed and bleeding and her knee rashed pretty good. Kate took off running for her, and thanks to nurse-in-training Jill, we spent nearly 20 minutes on the side of the road cleaning the poor lady up (sorry to make you re-live all this, Tina!). The only humor out of the situation was the group of about seven or eight college students, clearly on their way home from the bars, asking what we were doing, and did we need their help? Drunk Girl #2: "Can I help? I'm REALLY good with bandaids!" Us: "No, hunny, you just keep walking." Though not at all funny in the situation, it provided some good relief afterward. 

We found Kate, exchanged her back out for Tina who then got to run her last mile or so and still finish out her leg. Trooper, I tell ya what. (Side note: apparently she wasn't going to call me, but a lady who was right behind her when she fell made her - thank you Ragnar stranger!)

Morning aftermath. :(

Soon, we were getting ready to send off Kim, so Tina and I spent awhile cowbelling and cheering at the exchange waiting for Kate to come in and send Kim off on her night leg. As soon as we got Kim off, it was my turn to pysch up and get ready to roll. Fact: Despite doing (now) three Ragnars, the  night legs are still the worst for me - they are terrifying. I hate them more anything. Yes, it's cooler, yes the weather is usually nicer, but mentally... they overpower me. 

My night run was about 8.4 miles in and out of Santa Rosa - a gorgeous little city (home of Charles Schulz), but also country enough that there were enough trees and shadows that scared the crap out of me. As noted, all my legs were NO van support, and this one was clear as to why: two lane highway, and we were running against traffic (obviously) at 2 am. Not a good situation for turnarounds. I was determined, though, to make it better than leg 1, and ran with what I had in me to get a solid 8.4 mile run in! 

Night leg selfie. 

During the day, I'm sure that leg is amazingly gorgeous - I could make out cornfields, some vineyards, tons of trees and a pretty tunnel of trees we ran through at some point. I'd never been more excited to see the one mile to go sign and gave everything I had for that last one mile. 8.4 miles, 1:22 and change, and something like 8 minutes over projected. Told you, night legs win! 

After my night leg, I changed and passed out for a few more hours - thankfully. I can't remember when I woke up, but it was just before or just after Kristin (#12) headed out, so we were near the next major exchange! Time kinda flew, despite how over time we were. We got to the exchange, said hi to our Van 1ers, got Kristin through, and stopped at first aid for Tina (first aid is only at majors, and we hadn't been to a major since Tina's spill). The awesome guy got Tina super wrapped up, gave us extra supplies to clean up later, and sent us on our way. BREAKFAST. 

Over breakfast, Jill analyzed all our next runs and gave us the run-down: hills, flat, rolling, short. A quick pump-us-up before we headed down the road. After breakfast and some playing catch-up on our legs and kills, and brushing our teeth on the side of the road, we headed out. 

Last legs, here we come! 

Have you ever fallen while running? Did you keep running?

Ragnar Napa Valley: Part 2

Ragnar Napa Valley

September 19 - 20, 2014

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Somewhere about 2 in the afternoon, it was my finally my turn to run. I was excited and antsy and for whatever reason, nervous - not like I've done this before or anything - and needed to get myself together! My first leg was 6.6 miles, and I knew there was one beastly hill but the rest flattened out and should be bearable (hint: not true). 

Tina and Kate had both killed their first legs and it was finally Kim's turn to go! She had about 4.5 miles and was ready to rock. Finally, we heard our number and got ready to roll. Kim came flying in from her leg (she killed it!), and we were off. I had run into a friend from grad school in the store at Exchange 6, and her teammate (who I met at So Cal while trying to find said friend) recognized me and was also their runner 10. We said we'd try to pair up for our late-night run, but sadly she took off for her first run about 15 minutes before me. Oh well. 

Ha. That word, bearable. Never mind the fact that it was about 90 degrees out, but hit a heat index of almost 100, and it was brutal. I got not even to mile 2 before pausing to walk, doused myself at the water station and just hoped I'd make it through. I hadn't brought a handheld waterbottle at all (total fail), nor my phone, so just hoped for the best and that I'd make it through these 6.6 miles. My leg consisted of a zoo of roadkill - frogs, birds, opossum, deer - and unfortunately, not tons of scenery! 

At the start of my leg, just across from the exchange. 

Have I noted that ALL THREE of my legs were no van support? Not even partial. For you newbies, this means that my van wasn't allow to pull over anywhere to get me water, food, whatever, mostly due to the lack of shoulder space on the road or a runner being on a trail and not on the road. However, I think given with the heat index, there were tons of vans pulling over, I guess risking being disqualified?, and supporting their runner. 

Admittedly, I turned a few teams in while we were driving previously (on some really stupid places they were pulled over), but I was grateful when a van person ran across the road and handed me a bottle of ice water. No way I was gonna turn those kids in! About two miles later (just about 4.5, 5 maybe), I stopped to talk to a van across the road (who also refreshed me with a new bottle of water). Thankfully, I have Tina's phone number memorized (from college, no less), so I had this girl text her to tell her I was fine, but it was hot and I would be longer than anticipated. 

Finally, the one more mile marker showed its ugly face and I just wanted to fly - I zipped past the girl that I had leap-frogged with the whole time, and apparently made it so fast, my team wasn't ready for those coveted exchange photos! Bummer. 

I said at the end of my leg I wanted chocolate milk and cookies. My awesome vanmates even fed me the cookies! <3

It was finally over. Holy crap. I had never felt so horrible or defeated after a first Ragnar leg. I think there was a steady stream of obscenities that came out of my mouth and I was not happy with how that had gone at all. Well, it could only go up from here, right?

Alright, Leg 1, done!

How do you survive runs in 100+ degree heat indexes?