Life & Packing for Ragnar...

Well...

It's been over two years since I posted any race updates, and boy has it been a busy few years! I will begin filling in the holes with THAT in a little while, the task at hand for today is a discussion about packing for Ragnar. I did my FIRST Ragnar nearly against my will in 2011, and will be doing my ELEVENTH (1..2...3...4... yep, I think this is 11) Ragnar on April 4th-5th 2014. I have gone from the ultimate race newbie to a well seasoned and traveled race junkie from early 2011 to well... early 2014. The road hasn't been without bumps, bruises, misfortune and some disappointment, but it has also been full of amazing - amazing opportunities, PEOPLE, locations, fun, PRs, and did I mention BLING??

Ragnar is not like your typical race weekend - it actually takes the WHOLE weekend, especially if you have to travel away from home. Our upcoming Ragnar is the SoCal edition, so at least we don't have to leave the state. Even so, my teams generally spring for hotels on Thursday and Saturday, the race takes place Friday and Saturday. Some teams rent 12 or 15 passenger vans, mine have always just used vehicles that one of our team members have already. For regular teams of 12, using a minivan or suburban or yukon or something similar is usually the best bet for each group of 6. I have also heard of teams keeping the whole group together, but I don't really advocate doing that, then the 6 who aren't running don't get any down time to sleep or eat.


Sleeping and eating! In general, the thing to do is bring a large cooler and stock it with ice and bottled water, sports drink, chocolate milk, and snack items. Some of our past and current favorites include fruit, string cheese, bagels and cream cheese, deli meats, crackers, trail mix, jerky, chips, veggies and dip. At our team meeting(s), we usually come up with an informal list and each person picks up a few of their favorite or must-have things to share. We have almost always had WAY TOO MUCH, so I caution newbie Ragnarly peeps to discuss the quantities before finding out 3 people purchased 4 bags of trail mix from Costco but you have no Gatorade. Sometimes there are food options at exchanges - usually fundraisers put on by schools, but make sure you carry CASH, as most of them only accept cash. Don't forget to discuss with your van mates things such as allergies or preferences so everyone knows what someone may need to avoid when you are looking for places to eat during your downtime.

We have found using a hitch on the back of a vehicle to be a great way to gain extra space inside for bags and other items. You can put your cooler outside on a rack, as well as rolled up sleeping bags and bungee all of them down. Another good idea that I saw once was to bring one or two of those 3 drawer stand alone 'portable dressers' (plastic/rubber/tupperware, from Walmart or Target), they are about 2 ft tall by 1 ft wide and can be put in the back of a van or suburban on TOP of bags and if you have two of them, each person could have a drawer to stash and easily get to things without taking out or repacking bags. For sleeping I recommend a sleeping bag and pillow or a large warm blanket, also a tarp in case the ground is damp or wet. If you have access to an air mattress and room to stash it, I suggest that too. Sleeping areas at Ragnar range from outside on grass and sidewalk areas to inside a school or community center on the floor, and tarps and air mattresses are nicer than putting your bedding on the grass or the floor. I do NOT recommend trying to sleep IN your van - unless there's only one or two of you who do that. During my first Ragnar, all six of us decided to sleep in the van because we were just too exhausted to know better, and the results still alternately make me laugh and give me nightmares!

So many people ask - so what do you bring with you for a Ragnar weekend?? The official Ragnar list won't always include everything you will want for your adventure. The very first thing I do (after deciding on a team name/theme) is create my outfits. I am a tutu/sparkle girl so something tutu or sparkle will ALWAYS work its way into my race attire... SOMEwhere. It's my trademark, along with my iG @ragnarbabe! The BEST suggestion I have ever received from a fellow runner was to pack my 3 outfits in gallon ziplock bags. Why 3 outfits and why ziplock bags? It keeps each outfit separate but all the pieces together, it keeps them easily accessible, and gives you an easy way to 'dispose of' the outfit afterwards which you can seal and keep from contaminating the rest of your bag. There's no guarantee you'll get a shower, but this helps a ton! Generally in each bag, I stuff a shirt option, a shorts/skirt option, socks, underwear, a sports bra, and accessories such as compression sleeves or arm sleeves. After the bagged three outfits, I find the following extras handy: two pairs of running shoes. In case one gets wet, muddy, you lose one, it gives you blisters or hurts, you have a second option. Also, bring a non-running pair or shoes such as flip flops or sandals if that's what you kick around in when not running. A hoodie or jacket! MUST HAVE after the sun goes down, because when you're not running, I'm sorry but it's downright cold. Layering is good, so at least one long sleeve tech/running shirt is good to have in case you need to layer it under a shirt or tank because the weather isn't what you expect. A pair of running tights or yoga pants or capris- something long, again in case of cold/unexpected weather. At least extra shirt, sports bra, underwear, socks, and shorts. You'll also need: Reflective vest (my personal favorite is the amphipod harness style), head lamp, tail light, small flashlight, sunglasses, garmin, music player, cell phone, and chargers/plugs for all electronics. My favorite extra right now is a usb charger which provides extra power - when it's full you can plug in your phone or use it to charge your garmin or iPod. Don't forget sunblock, chapstick, bandaids, and ibuprofen! Earplugs can also be helpful!

On the *fun* side we like to decorate, so some of my must-haves for this include 8x10 individual photos of each team member, plastic sleeves to cover them with (page protectors), painter's tape, and window crayons. We've also been able to get vinyl made for our windows with our team name and Ragnar logos as a little professional touch! See ya out on the course in a few weeks!

5K Surprise!

!! So this morning I woke up at 5AM to run the 5K I've been talking about for a couple of months. I've been thinking about it all week, not really nervous but yet again I hadn't exactly RACED in a long time. There's just a difference between running for training purposes.. and actually racing. I figured I'd give myself a nice block of time to get ready and then allow time for driving since it was down the hill for us. While I was getting ready, I got a message from my friend that her boys were sick and she wouldn't make it to the race... how disappointing! She did hook me up with the number for another teammate so I could meet up with her when I got down there.



This is the lovely start/finish line which I could see from the car while we were frantically trying to find a place to park so I could go check in. I had no idea there would be SO MANY PEOPLE. I should have known, it was a FREE race, right? I called my friend and she offered to pick up my race number and chip and meet me because she was over at the check-in area already.

How to explain my feelings pre-race.. maybe mixed? I don't really get nerves, I had teammates who used to get sick and puke, run their mouths and talk and joke, or wander around and shut out everybody. I was meeting up with two of my Ragnar teammates that I'd already met at the first meeting, and several other running buddies of theirs. We introduced each other and then fiddled around with our music players while waiting for the announcer to start the race. I was trying to figure out the shortest distance to the front through people, there were so many runners we were all in a chute starting, so our group was at least 200 deep, probably more.

The hardest part is probably waiting, because by the time I got my number and stuff, there was only supposed to be five minutes before the race start. I of COURSE had to run and pee, and again of course I had to get in a line behind someone that took almost 5 minutes to get out of the port a potty. Fortunately, everything was running a little behind, which meant the gun didn't go off till 8:45, instead of 8:30.

I remember thinking - how the heck am I going to get through this huge crush of people, but when the race started, I stopped thinking and just ran. I had to kind of weave through and around people constantly until I went around the first turn, but after that, people were spaced out enough that I didn't feel like I was tripping on runners' heels and banging into the back of anybody. Also, another cool thing is this race used a chip attached to your shoe that started recording your time when you crossed the start line, so being stuck in the crush at the beginning before the start line didn't count against you toward your total time.

I felt good for most of the race, there were always people around me but not a lot, and there were also always people ahead that I could watch to see where they turned on the course. The streets were closed for the race, so most of us were running down the middle of the roads, and people who lived along the street were all sitting outside watching and taking photos. I had printed a course map to look at when I registered, but I really couldn't remember where the streets were in the course, and the mile points were not marked. I found out after that the water station for the race was at the 1.5 mark, I'm still not a real good judge of distance, so I would have had no idea. I usually estimate my distance I've run based on the time passed, but that didn't help me on Saturday because I ran much faster than any of my training runs.

The last half mile or so I tried to speed up more, I kept a pretty constant pace but nearer the end there were fewer people and they were more spread out, so I'd zero in on one person and see I was running faster, so I'd try to pass them... and once I did, move on to the next one. At the VERY end I started feeling sick almost, but the finish was RIGHT there, so I just kept going... and then thought I might puke! I figured, oh well, if I do it's not like the crowd there had never seen a runner puke. Turns out I was able to just walk a little bit and then I was fine. They wanted their chip back right away so they could log the time, so once I felt like I might not be sick, I went to one of the race volunteers so she could cut off my chip/tag thing.

As I was running in, I saw the time on the clock and I THOUGHT it said 24 something, my muddled brain didn't catch much more beyond the 24 and it was just jammed up there in wonder. I had been shooting for 26, or if possible just LESS than 26, 27 would be approx a 9 min mile avg and I just wanted to run faster than most of my training runs. Right after I finished I saw one of my friends so I went over to congratulate him, he finished maybe at 23:40 he said, so he saw me finish. Then we waited for our other friends to finish.

I figured I'd stick around for the awards and I went over to where they had started posting up the times and finishers, it took quite awhile because there were really a lot of people. There were still people finishing for at least an hour after I finished, maybe longer. Some of my friends left, I went and grabbed some snacks so I could share them with my daughter while we waited. I didn't really expect anything at this point, I just wanted to enjoy the whole 'race experience'.

WELL... it turns out that I got a second place medal for women for my age group (I'm 36) with my time of 24:20, which is a 7:51 avg mile. I also came in 26th for women. My husband said he was pretty sure I would get something in the awards because the majority of the people that came in ahead of me were men, and the women that came in ahead of me were super young - the first three women finishers were all under age 18 lol. This is where it pays to be an old fogey, I'm telling ya.



This is me and my daughter after the finish



This is me and my friends after the race outside IHOP =P with my lovely number and medal

I am still in love with running. What a fun return to the competitive world =D
March 12th 2011 Arrowhead Medical Center 5K
http://www.resultsbyprimetime.com/RESULTS%20PAGES/MAR11/ARMC/armc_run_age_11.htm#35-39 Female

Running... there's an app for that!

I am not in possession of an iPhone and I actually make fun whenever possible, hence the name for this posting! I will admit though with the truth behind 'there's an app for that', there certainly IS an app for almost everything, and they even make them for Android OS! I downloaded an app for running yesterday. Okay, I lied. The app doesn't actually run FOR me =D.

Yesterday I went out for my 5K training run on my loop here and got mapmyrun ready to enter my stats when I got back. It was all well and good, and I had checked my time when I had less than a quarter of a mile left to go, so I was pretty sure I'd make a better time than my previous, which had been 26:35. That was about the time I thought to check my pockets for my house key... and I discovered that I must've dropped it somewhere. My joy at running a 26:10 was quickly replaced by 'OH crap, I wonder how quickly I can run it again and see if I can find the damn key before I have to get back home and pick up my daughter from school'. It would never do to be running around the neighborhood with my eyes glued to the ground, hunting for a key while some of my friends drove by asking if I realized school was out. Part of my loop goes right past the school so I thought about just walking back there and waiting, but I ended up going home instead. I probably walked an extra mile just seeing if I'd get lucky and spot the stupid key.

Enter run number two! One of my friends who is going to be running the Ragnar with me had been messaging me earlier to see if I wanted to go run with her. She lives in a fairly hilly neighborhood so it's a great place to run. I'm a glutton for punishment obviously so I called her back and said sure. Her goal was just to run about a mile, because she was wiped out, she's had sick kids and no sleep, so part of me going over there was motivation and company. THAT was when she showed me RunKeeper, which is this cool little app for iPhone. Once you load it up and start it, it keeps track of your distance, your avg pace, it even shows a gps map of where you are. I think it keeps track of calories burned too, and it shows splits as a graph so you can see how evenly you run as far as speed. Afterwards, you can save your workout or upload it or share it.

The run was pretty fun, we ended up doing more of an 11 min pace but we ran 3.5ish miles total, and I really liked the whole stat-gathering aspect of RunKeeper. I looked it up later and am disappointed to report I haven't been able to find the same exact app but I did find JogTracker, which operates almost the same, and there's an option on there somewhere that 'speaks' stats to you. I haven't tested it yet, that's on today's list of things to do so I'll see if I can set it up to update me at mile markers for distance, speed, split time, and total time.

I'm also sorry to report that there's not actually an app for running, you still have to do it yourself - but there's a great many cool little gadgets now that make tracking how you do, where you go, etc much easier than just trying to remember. I still like my stopwatch and mapmyrun for basics but technology is fun! After all, I have a GPS in my car, without which I would be lost all the time. I purposely make my running loops easy to remember since it's not like there are race volunteers and signs on every corner preventing me from running 5 miles in the wrong direction.

A Numbers Game

Well today's workout was fun! I mapped out a new course of about 3.5 miles on mapmyrun.com and then ventured out to run it. Mostly I was testing to see if I could run a 5K in under 30 minutes - guess what? My total loop was 32, so based on what I estimate to run almost half a mile, I ran a 28:30ish 5K. My avg for the 3.5 run total was 9:30, I'm happy with that. Now if I can just keep my avg to 9:30 or less when I run the next 10K distance....

An interesting thing about mapmyrun is that in the mapped route it looked like the road extended all the way to where I wanted to run - ha, when I got to a certain point I had to run past a blockade at the end of the road and onto dirt. Oh well, trail running is good practice, right? It has been so long since I've actually run on dirt and trails and grass, what a gigantic pain! It looks flat at first glance but it was so lumpy and I had to be careful about where I stepped while running. I have to say I prefer running on the side of the road or even on the sidewalk. I like track surfaces too as long as they aren't dirt tracks, but running on a track in my opinion is kind of boring like a treadmill. Part of the joy of running outside is the scenery and watching what you pass by... and enjoying how quickly you watch it fade away behind you =)

I'm feeling good today, I want to share it. You can do anything, just believe it. I can, and I do.

Runners are Crazy....

I did it now, not only have I not posted a blog here in almost two years, I agreed to run a race for the first time since I was 18 - that's 18 years. Some people raise a child from birth to college in that amount of time!

Oddly enough, it hasn't been all that tough getting back into it. I enjoy running once I get going, the tough part for me some days is making myself get away from the desk and start. I also used to consider myself a distance runner because I ran cross country and the distance events in track, but technically my longest races were around a 5K, with the shorter trail runs around 2.1 and of course the 1600.

I'm training for the SoCal Ragnar relay in April and I chose my leg this morning, and NONE of my legs are shorter than a 5K lol. I think I'll be okay and I'm pretty excited, but I have no true indication how things will go because I've never run a race like this before. In reality it's going to be almost like running a 5K and two 10Ks, each one separated by maybe 5-6 hours. I've never run a half marathon, never run a marathon, and the last 12K I ran was - like I said, 18 years ago.

I'm going to include some of my training runs here so I have something to look back on - when I first decided I was in and signed up a month ago, I think I was running around 2 miles a workout, 2-4 days a week. I mostly ran on the treadmill at the gym and I was running around 12 min miles. I also do some lifting and core but not a ton... probably less than an hour total a week. I've since decided I like running outside better and I mapped a route/loop near my house that's about 2.25 miles. I've been timing my runs and plugging them into cool running's pace calc, and outside I run anywhere between 9:32 mile avg down to an 8:53 mile avg. I'm planning to map a longer route so I can just run one long one instead of having to do my 2.25 mile loop three times. Today's run was 9:23, yesterday I skipped, Thursday's was 9:20, Wednesday was 8:58, Tuesday was 8:53, Monday was 9:18. I haven't figured out why they are all so different, Tuesday's was my longest run, almost 7 miles. Monday was 4.5, all the rest was 2.25 except for Thurs, I ran a total of 5 but split into two workouts. I think I need to go find a training program for 10Ks or half marathons to see how they break up the mileage and add it in week by week.