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!

The SoCal Ragnar Experience....

This is the story.... of 12 people in 2 vans, picked to run 200 miles and have the most exhausting, fun, sleep deprived, party weekend ever. See what happens when they get out of the vans and start running...

So last year, my friend Jessica told me about this race she was involved in, called a Ragnar Relay. I'm not sure whether I actually ASKED her about it or whether she just told me, because I do recall she asked me if I wanted to run it with her last year. I decided to pass.... but in Dec 2010 she asked me about doing it with her, in April 2011. What the hell, why not? She told me 'I hate running. You love running. If I can do it and want to do it AGAIN, you'll LOVE it.'

Thursday evening: 4/14/11

'The girls' from van 1 are all at a hotel in Ontario, chillin, eating ice cream, planning for the morning. We had good intentions of trying to get to bed early but uh, since I was sitting in the car wash at 5:30 when Stacy was supposed to pick me up, we got started a bit later than expected. Then we were going to pick up Lisa but her husband wasn't home yet... so off to pick up Jessica. Jessica wasn't READY so we figured we'd go back and pick up Lisa first. We made a detour to Jack in the Box because.... we were starving. Runners often have that happen...

I think we got on the road by 8...ish? Shopping trip to SuperTarget to get any missed items etc. I can't sleep very well when I travel, and we all stayed up talking, even after we went to bed, so it must've been after 1:30 by the time we were passed out.

Friday morning: 4/15/11

First alarm going off at 5 am and I was running for the shower, we all had to hurry and get ready so we could meet the guys and have breakfast. Funny true moment - our team name was Road Rage and we were dressing as a roller derby team. Purple vnecks, black booty shorts, fishnets, argyle socks, bandanas. When we walked into the hotel's breakfast area, the looks on the other patrons' faces was PRICELESS. Priceless I tell you! You wanna turn heads? Join a Ragnar team =)


2011 Road Rage ~Lisa Jen Stacy Jessica~


Friday morning: 4/15/11 - HIDE YOUR WIFE, HIDE YOUR KIDS...

On the drive to Huntington Beach with the guys, we discovered our 'theme' for the weekend quite by accident when someone brought up Antoine Dodson and the bed intruder song. Trust me, you hear that ONCE, it's in your head all damn day. It was in ours all.weekend.long. Here is our van -


*hide your kids*


And here are our **HOMEBOYS**


Jason & Wade, Road Rage 2011

We were having a lot of fun goofing off and posing for pictures and decorating our van at the start.... until I realized it was like... 9:52 and I needed to get my booty to the start line! I could hear the announcer talking to people at the start. The thing about a relay of this size is that there are like 500 teams competing, so start times are staggered and began from 6 AM. Our 'sister' roller derby team, CA Rollers, started at 8 AM because their avg pace was slower. Our start was 10 AM, and my guess was there were maybe 25 teams in the same starting slot. I think some of my teammates got some pics of the starting line but I was kind of in the zone by then, getting ready.

My first run was pretty enjoyable, I wasn't too concerned about getting lost because we were running along the beach on a paved trail, and I could always see a few people running ahead. No traffic or lights and no wind! Living in the high desert and training in very windy conditions has taught me to HATE running in wind. I'm not sure what's worse, running into the wind, or running in the rain. Probably running into the wind. Rain doesn't knock you onto your butt and sap all your energy. All in all, it was a beautiful run but the last 10 min or so were very HOT. Before the race began, I wasn't at all sure about STARTING off the relay, but it turns out I got to run before it was totally blazing, and for that I am GRATEFUL. I couldn't get my cardiotrainer app started before I had to take off running, so I didn't have that to help me gauge my distance or time, so when I saw what looked like a heads up for exchange 2, I was excited - curious to see whether I'd stayed on pace, was ahead, or behind. My 10K pace avg I listed was 9:00 miles, hoping to take into account getting lost, changed courses, extended leg mileage, heat, hills, nasty wildlife, accidents... I finished my first 5 mile leg in approx 38 min - 7:45 avg pace, well ahead of my projected. I handed off the slap bracelet to Jason, our awesome runner 2 and chugged a bottle of water after making sure I wasn't going to puke on my husband and daughter who had come to meet me after my leg!

Jason's leg passed by rather quickly BECAUSE as we found out, being all Ragnar virgins EXCEPT Jessica - it takes a real amount of time to get from one exchange to the next! Just imagine for a moment... somewhere along the course are 500 vans! Staggered start times and different speeds and abilities of various runners all complicate things even more. Toss in midday general traffic AND some road construction?! I think we managed to get to the 3rd exchange for Lisa's leg before Jason got there, but we didn't have much time to spare. We had started out wanting to see if we could shadow our runners some as they ran, but it was priority that we were able to get the next runner to the exchange before the previous runner arrived, so we didn't get to see any of Jason's run. Lisa's run was over 5 miles, so we had almost an hour to get Wade to his exchange point - we snuck in a trip to change and take a quick bathroom break. It was seriously HOT and we were beginning to worry about van 2.... at this point I don't think they were yet at exchange 6. Wade made great time during his leg and we got to exchange 5 to wait with Stacy - she had a short leg for her first but it had a horrible monster HILL that we saw dozens of people walking on! So proud of Stacy, she was RUNNING! We cheered her on and hurried to exchange 6 to wait with Jessica and meet up with van 2! After our first round of legs was completed, I am happy to report we were still on pace with our projections!


Drew, Jake, and Loren - three of Road Rage van 2!

Time for some R&R and some dinner - while Jessica ran her 2.7 mile leg, we hung out at the exchange with van 2 and after she handed off the baton to Drew, we took advantage of the chiropractic stretching, protein bar samples, and starbucks coffee. Upon packing up to go head to exchange 12, we decided to hit up Togos for some real dinner:



Friday night and the livin's easy.... well, if you're not runner 1 that is. I remember starting to get antsy and cabin feverish - or maybe it was the whole 6-people-in-a-van thing. Our estimated pace had me running again about 7:15... but I think something happened inbetween during one of the earlier legs of van 2, maybe Drew or Joe's because they were longer or more hilly, because it was 7:15 and Jake was still running. I had to wear my night gear for this leg - anything between 6:45 PM and 6:45 AM was considered night running, and I had to wear a reflective vest, a headlamp, and a flasher somewhere on my back. I clipped my flasher to the back of my headlamp strap - coolio, eh?



here's Jake after the exchange - he must've been thrilled to send me packing lol!



Running at night is fun, different - unlike some people, it doesn't bother me. I can run alone as well as run with people, makes no difference to me. Stacy and I did some night runs together to test our race equipment about a week before the race. My second leg felt fast as well, it got dark during the run so I ran down the flashers ahead of me to get 'kills'... ahh I forgot to talk about THAT! Kills are people we pass running! I think I got 4 kills in my first leg, Jason got 6, Lisa got 6, Wade got 11, Stacy got 9, and Jessica got 5. I think I got 11 in my second leg... PROBLEM though! I was running to my exchange and looking for Jason, and I couldn't FIND HIM! It turns out my van got waylaid at a SOBRIETY CHECKPOINT and they were sitting there forEVER. Thank GOD they were let thru as soon as they discovered it was a Ragnar van, I was yelling 'where's my runner? WHERE'S MY RUNNER?!' and people were staring at me like I was crazy! Jason said that while they were still driving, he saw me looking for him and he made them stop the van and let him out so he could get over there, he was haulin ass, running across the street and yelling for me so I would see him. I'm not sure if I actually made up any time, I ran my second 5.3 mile leg in about 43 min, so 8:06, but in the projections we were still 45 min behind. We piled into the van and decided to try and find or meet up with Jason as he was running, this was his killer 9.3 mile leg that included a 2 mile horse trail he had to sign a waiver for - something about not holding Ragnar responsible for stinging nettles and poison oak and snakes and ... God knows what else =P We found a good spot to catch up with him and got out to wait. It was so cool to see him come running toward us as we cheered and gave him water and sent him on his way for his last mile!

Wade ran Lisa's night leg with her and then his own - we drove past them on our way to the next exchange and honked and yelled - they were WALKING lol. It was pretty close to the middle of the night by this time and it was getting cold and a little breezy. Jessica was dismayed that her second leg had increased to 7 miles and was no support, as well as starting around midnight, depending when Stacy arrived at the exchange, so I decided to run with her. We ran into some of the CA Rollers at the exchange and chatted with them for a second -


- but then suddenly Stacy was in the exchange chute yelling for Jess. I had to pitch Prak's water bottle and take off after her! We had a very good and easy run, a lot of it was downhill grade and it only took us 68 minutes! Not bad considering at the last mile we actually didn't cut thru the field and tacked on an extra .2 of a mile, oops. We passed off to Drew and then headed to the next big exchange to SLEEP for a bit.

A little PSA about sleeping in a van.... who DOES that? I must've dozed a bit ONLY because I remember dimly getting to the exchange and a volunteer telling us - you can only park in here if you plan to sleep OUTSIDE your van. If you want to sleep INSIDE your van, you have to park THERE. I wasn't driving or in the front seat, so I figured whoever was up there would tell me if I had to get up or not, and I nodded off again for a short while. When I woke up, I thought my teammates had gone crazy, Wade was raving about 'wet dog' and laughing at Lisa for having a wool blanket over her head, I heard someone talking about how the van was going to combust, something about no windows being open and they couldn't breathe. This struck me as really really REALLY damn funny and so I was curled up in my seat shaking because I didn't want to laugh out loud and have anybody know I was awake and listening to them. Jessica's seat was leaned back all the way into mine and mine was pretty much leaned into Wade's lap. I remember checking the time because I figured I'd have to run again around 5ish.. or 5:30, and once I was awake, I was thinking about running again.

I was actually glad it was light out when I started, even though I had to wear my night gear still, because my last leg was the one I was most concerned about getting lost. I get lost more than anybody I know, and if things are not well marked, well...
Running when you're sleep deprived is weird too, I was kinda tired, but had the adrenaline thing going on too. Originally my last leg was supposed to be along the coast and the water, but it got changed, it was shortened from 7 to 5.5 (I'm sure the extra I lost was tacked on in Jason's horse trail) and it was more inland. I still got some beautiful views of the water and town, but we ran up by Legoland, and there were some hilly areas there. I was most excited when I saw my van go by, slow, and cheer for me, I made a kill while running downhill seeing my van drive around the corner. The only trouble with this leg was it was all sidewalk and lots of traffic lights. Safety first in the Ragnar, so everybody was supposed to wait for the walk signals and cross only in a cross walk. At one crossing I had whomped on the crossing button and was impatiently waiting for the light to change and this guy behind me starts yelling at me not to cross the street. Oh, DUH, there was ONLY a ragnar sign that said 'cross and then left' which meant to cross the street and THEN turn left, not turn left and then cross at some undetermined point yet up ahead. I got a lot of kills on this run because not only were people walking, they were running the wrong way. When I was probably within a mile of the end, I was waiting at another crosswalk when a girl behind me passed me and ran right out in the street. There was a TRUCK about to turn and it almost ran into her - the guy was signaling and making faces like 'are you CRAZY?!'. I crossed the street after the truck went and the light had changed, caught up with her waiting at the second crosswalk and then passed her immediately for being so dumb. It was SOOO nice to see the exchange coming up and Jason waiting, that meant I was DONE running! My last run I was right on 49-50 min which was my avg pace of 9 minute miles - good considering I ran my first 2 over a minute faster and added an extra 7 mile run at 9:30ish - no sleep, riding around in a van for 2 days - did I fail to mention no sleep? Haha!


No sleep - till Brooklyn! I mean... Coronado Island!

I know that at some point, I decided to change out of my last running outfit and back into my Road Rage outfit, I THINK we were at the cool exchange with the bunny girls. Since there was very little parking, Wade was going to park in this other area and several of our van mates kept telling him not to, I think I told him to do it anyway lol. He was going to, when we saw ONE spot right on the other side of the fence, so he backed into it. While I was in the van, CHANGING, (after I warned everybody btw), Lisa came around and tried to open one door, while Stacy or Jessica opened the other. Granted, you usually can't see into a minivan with one door open but with BOTH? I was hollering and yelling because I had my shorts off and was trying to put my fishnets on again and really didn't think we needed to give the exchange a show. On top of that, one of the 15 passenger vans was trying to get out of its parking spot, and it came about 2 inches from hitting Stacy's van - and I was sitting right by the window lol. I took a lot of pictures of other vans at this exchange, I think that's when I saw this guy:


self explanatory - running sucks

Fave volunteers/exchange

We had a few more legs to get through - during Stacy's last leg we found her and video'd her dumping water on herself and dancing to 'hide your kids hide your wife' and during Jessica's, we found her and cheered as she was running up her monster hill!

Jessica and Jake - our awesome Ragnar veterans - van 1 is now DONE and Jake will be bringing the whole team in with leg 36 at the beach!

Here is us EATING at In N Out!


All the guys mentioned the whole time was In N Out. It was a GREAT post-race celebration meal because really, who could eat that and then still RUN a leg? *shudder*

After dinner we went to check in at the hotel and shower and head to the finish line to wait for van 2 and Jake. I don't think I really rested at all, even though I laid down for a bit. We received some info that said parking was at a premium at the race finish, so they were only letting vans with van numbers in priority, if you had lost your van number you'd get second shot, if you were just a spectator, you might be screwed. My husband and daughter arrived at the hotel while I was showering, so I told them i'd go in the van and just meet them - it sounded like it might take till at least 6 or later for Jake to finish the last leg so we had time - I think it might have been around 4:30 and we were pretty close to the finish area.



Here we are at the end!

I absolutely know I'm nuts because I'm already planning another one, Napa Valley Ragnar Relay 2011 (Sept) here I come =D

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

Go Go Ragnar!

I've been browsing the site and discovered there's a listing of all the teams and stats from 2009 and 2010, and of course our team lists for 2011! One interesting stat is that the team number totals have more than quadrupled since 2009! That year there were 105 teams, in 2010 there were 282, guess how many there are this year? 460!! I'm not sure when the total cut off is to register but that is a ton!

I've been having a lot of fun reading through the lists and I thought I'd share a list of my favorite names... don't laugh too hard!

2009
Ragnarcissists
Pavlov's Dogs
Why the F**K are we doing this?!
Ask about my B.R.
Runny Eggs
Mike & Ikes
The Loony Bin
May the course be with you
Peer Pressure Works!
O Van, Where Art Thou?
I blame the voices
On the Rag
ahh gah!!
The Village People
Running Impaired
Designated Drinkers

2010
Are we there yet?
Running from Responsibility
gotdirtyballz.com
Got lost on our way to the 5K
Freak Show
Prefontaineous Combustion
Seven Chicks & Five Dicks
Shut Up and Run Some More
USAGONY
We Love Nike!!
Mind over reality
FRESH (Friends running every stinking hour)
Don't be last
No Clue Yet
OMG!WTF?!
Just Do It. Tiger Would.
Pirate Ninja Alliance
Foxes United (FU)
The 12 Pack
Our drinking team has a running problem
Logistical Nightmares
Crawly Llamas
Fellowship of the Rag
morons (moms out running on no sleep)
Dumb and Dumber
Free Tshirts? We're in!
Dude, where's our car?
In the morning, I'll make waffles
Don't tell me to run faster, I VOLUNTEERED!
A 12 step program
51 kids home alone
12 Monkeys
If I'm not back in five minutes...just wait longer!
Kanye better let us finish
Run with Dick and Jane
Ragnuts
WTF?! (where's the finish?!)
Pound sand
It was a good idea in January

2011
Too stupid to not start, too stubborn to not finish
abandoned cactus tramps
we ditched school to do this?
starbucks allstars
arrogant masters
running without a full deck
pants optional
dexter's midnight runners
the most interesting team in the world
sexual relay-shuns
anti-love handles
TBD
half a team, half a brain
sugar coated whoop ass
Wii not fit
motley shues
My SoCal'd Life
slow twitch stupidity
running wild again
fast times at ragnar high
smart ass council
rompompachomp
spanking machine
severe tire damage
where the wild things run
directionally challenged
away team
lost-in-transit
half case of runners
can't even run straight
long distance RELAY-tionship
speed is relative
haulin asphalt
If I have to stop this van, someone is gonna get spanked!
Road Rage
Poison Apples
DNR
Supergalsarefastalicious!
set phasers to run
who talked us into this?
rowdy with a chance of awesome
I'd rather be shopping
warped speed
I thought this was a 5K...
Resist the B.S.
I've made a huge mistake
Jack's combo #12
the discarded sneakers
you can't fix stupid
Do you think I will still have to do chores after this?

So many of these were GREAT! My teams are Road Rage and Poison Apples, it's nice to see we were at least original.

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.

5K Fever!

So yesterday I signed up for my first 5K in almost 2 decades.. and I am pretty excited. I'll be running the Arrowhead Medical Center 5K in Colton, and I am hoping for good quiet weather ie no wind. The race isn't until March 12th so I still have a few weeks to train, and I just mapped myself a new 3.2 route to make things easier.

I ran the route today because the weather was good, and lo and behold - I ran a 26:28!!! I rounded it up to 26:35 just because my route was a little off so I had to make sure I actually ran the entire distance so I could get a realistic time. A bit of my route forced me onto dirt/gravel rather than road or sidewalk, and that likely tacked on at least 10 seconds. I am hoping to run a sub 26 at the 5K race.. and to think before my run today I was just hoping for 27:30!

I'm pumped! I hit an 8:48 avg mile pace! Now if I can only train enough to make that my avg for a 10K.. hmmm.

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.