You ran how far?

(Team Currently Unknown at the Finish Line)

Twelve people, 29 hours, 171 miles: a very simple definition of the Las Vegas Ragnar Relay. However, as we discovered on the weekend of October 9th, Ragnar is so much more.

JoAnna has wanted to run a Ragnar for quite some time now. Her chance came in June when we received a flyer for the first annual Las Vegas Ragnar Relay. Jo asked me if I thought I knew enough people to put together a team; I wasn’t sure but I figured we should ask our neighbors, Gregg and Jen. They were excited to participate and even knew another guy, Heath, who they thought might run.

JoAnna was pretty excited. She began checking around work and found Shawncee. Shawncee in turn, knew Katey, who knew Denise. We quickly had a team of 8 ready to go. On a whim, Jo e-mail Matt and Bethany, whom we met while hiking the Inca Trail, to see if they wanted to drive over from L.A. and run. Being the awesome adventurers that they are, they agreed. We then convinced Matt Miller, a friend from Wisconsin (now living in Vegas) that he should run. We picked up our friend Alice, who decided this crazy race should be her first big run. We had a full team by August.

After our first team meeting we discovered that Matt Miller had injured himself, but found a replacement runner named Marlie. Matt never actually met Marlie, he found her through a friend of a friend.

Due to the nature of our team not really knowing each other, we decided to run our relay as team Currently Unknown (the name JoAnna gave us as a filler when she had to sign us up, but didn’t know our official name yet… get it? It’s clever… trust me).

We all trained separately or in small groups of two or three; meeting only three times as a team to go over details for the race and have a huge pre-race spaghetti feed.

On the morning of October 9^th, van 1 (Myself, Jen, Heath, Shawncee, Alice, and Marlie with our driver Bev) rolled out of our driveway and headed up to the starting point at the Clark County Fair Grounds. Shawncee took off as runner 1 at 9 a.m. We each ran our 1^st leg of the race, and met Van 2 (Jo, Bethany, Matt, Katey, Denise and Gregg and their driver, Pete) in Valley of Fire State Park around noon.

(Van 1: Heath, Cory, Alice, Shawncee, Jen, Bev, and Marlie)

Van 2 had a much crappier first leg to run. Where our first leg totaled 24 miles between 6 people, theirs totaled 43 miles. It was mostly up hill and definitely hot. We met them again at Lake Mead around 9:00 p.m.

(Van 2 from top l-r: Gregg, Jo, Denise, Matt, Katey, Bethany)

We all ran late night runs. We all ran them extremely fast. By the time van 2 was done with its second leg, the team was 40 minutes ahead of schedule. We never looked back.

At 2:06 p.m. the next day the entire team waited by the pool area of Red Rock Casino as Jo, fittingly, ran the last leg of the race. As Ragnar tradition dictates, we all ran the last 100 yards of the race and crossed the finish line as a team.

Ragnar is an amazing activity. The thought of running 171 miles in 29 hours is astonishing and mind blowing. But a Ragnar Relay is so much more than running. Ragnar instills a true sense of community in its participants. You cheered your own runners along, but you cheered every other runner that passed you as you waited by the side of the road to catch a glimpse of your teammate. You made sure everyone had water, no matter the team. You slapped hands, you laughed, you cheered, you offered up your food.

There is so much more that could be said. So much more that was done. All 12 of us made life-long friends in 29 hours… and we’re crazy enough to ponder doing another Ragnar this June.

Sore feet and smiles,

Cory