My Ragnar Del Sol Experience: Ragnar Del Snore?

Ever since I first heard about Ragnar, I thought it sounded like a fun, unique experience and I couldn't wait for a chance to participate in it.  I remember attending running club practice in February 2013 and hearing people talk about it.

“I’m taking it easy tonight.  We have Ragnar this weekend!”

“I have to start with a half marathon distance!”

“Who else is in your van?”

And on and on until I asked, “What’s Ragnar?”

Ragnar is the overnight running relay race that makes testing your limits a team sport.[1]

Wow, an opportunity to compete as a team with 11 other people who like running!  I knew if I wanted to get in on this, it would have to be with the running club.  (I don’t know 11 other people who like running, maybe 3 or 4.  And I certainly wouldn’t want to deal with the logistics of van rental, navigation, and coordinating pickups and drop-offs alone.)  When they started to reach out for people later that year for the 2014 event, I expressed an interest in volunteering, so I could find out more about how it works.

 

Long story short, we had some runners drop and needed people to fill in, so I signed up as a runner instead.  I’d be participating in Ragnar Del Sol five days after my second marathon run.  But so were a lot of other people on the teams (our running club had 2 teams of 12), so I figured as long as we weren’t competing on the basis of speed, I’d probably do okay.  People in the running club said it would be fun.  Random people at work who had formed a team, said it would be fun.  The whole stupid Ragnar website says it will be fun.

We finished the race two days ago and I’m still trying to figure out what part was fun.

I don’t want to sit here and bash Ragnar, because I think as a race, it delivered everything it said it would.  I raced with a team of people, the course was well marked, and I felt safe.  I won't bash our team captain either, because I applaud all of the work that it took to coordinate logistics of 2 teams, 24 runners, and 4 vans.  But man, did I have the most boring, non-fun team ever.  Because of the way it worked out with leg assignments and last-minute replacements, I was in a van full of strangers.  Of the people who were running club members, I had only seen them at practice once or twice, so I knew nothing about them.  Two additional people that filled in that weren’t associated with the club at all.  All of my friends and the people I knew and liked were in the other van or on the other team.  But, I guess since I’d be stuck in a van with them for 36 hours (yeah, it took us a little over 36 hours to finish), I’d be able to make friends, right?

Wrong.  I didn’t make enemies, but I certainly didn’t make friends.  Our race started out like this:  

Friday – 4:00am – We all meet at Runner #4’s house because he had the van.  We traveled to Wickenburg (the start line) from his place – which is about 45 minutes away – in complete silence.

5:00am – We check in for our safety briefing, get our shirts and take a couple of pictures.  We’re all freezing cold so we go back to the van until we have to see Runner #1 off.  For the most part, none of us are speaking to each other yet.

6:00am – Our Runner #1 starts, we see her off, and then we go back to the van and drive to Safeway for coffee.  Other people in my van are seeing people they know on other teams and making conversation.  I get a cup of coffee and go back to the van.  

From that point on, it is just a series of pulling up to the exchange point, changing runners, and then getting back in the van for more hours of not talking or doing anything.

When it was my turn to run (I was Runner #5), and I didn’t have to be in the van, I had a great time.  My first leg was at 11am Friday.  After being with these people for 7 hours, I was anxious to be doing something.  I ran for a little over an hour.  I was high-fiving people and talking to other runners along the way.  When I was done, I didn’t run again until 1am Saturday.  And after that, I ran at noon on the same day.

Does it seem like a boring story?  That’s because it was boring.  I didn’t have a bad time; no one made me feel bad for not being fast or not being one of the top teams to finish.  But, I just didn’t have that great of a time either.  I am probably too antisocial for Ragnar.  I like being able to worry about myself – JUST myself – then running the best race I can, and going home.  Ragnar isn’t like that.  Even if you get yourself where you need to be and run the best race you ever have, you still have to wait for 11 more people to go before you get to do anything else.  And if you’re in a van full of antisocial strangers, it can make for some uneventful hours.  

Here are my top learnings from my Ragnar experience:

1. Unless you know them well prior to the event, do not get stuck in a van with a couple (unless, maybe, you are the couple).  I had to listen to things like, “I want to sit next to my honey in the van!” and “She said she doesn’t need anything except a kiss when we stop to check on her,” for two days.  Give me a break people.  We’re not at our prettiest, sexiest, or most romantic when we run (or maybe it’s just me?).  Please stop making the other runners in the van nauseous. 
2. If you can’t pick your dream team or some portion thereof, it’s probably better to wait until next year.  I can’t say for sure, but I would like to think if I had been with my regular partners in crime (Heather, Scott, Lauren, and NOT exclusively semi-absent running club people or peripheral fill-ins) that I would have had a better time.  I know a lot of people who did enjoy their Ragnar this year.  I just don’t get it.  I am probably not that good at forging friendships where none existed before.
3. You can’t be in it for the “race” part.  I’m not a fast runner.  I would never claim to be, and I was still in recovery mode from my marathon and knew that would affect my pace.  However I found myself getting annoyed when people wouldn’t run at the pace they said they would, or wouldn’t run at all.  I’m pretty sure that makes me a horrible person and a hypocrite.  But when our 36 projected hours started to become 37, 38 hours of time spent together, I was done and I wanted out.  Now, thankfully we had a Van 2 that hauled ass during their last legs and made up the time my van had gradually acquired throughout the race, but that shouldn’t be anyone’s responsibility.  I should love these people enough to be with them through whatever time it takes, but that just wasn’t happening with our relationship being based on Ragnar exclusively.
So many people keep saying “you’ll do it again next year” even though I have been pretty consistent in my vocalization of not wanting to do this race ever again.  All in all I rate my chances of doing Ragnar again as:

HIGHLY UNLIKELY 

I can’t say “never” because I suppose there are a limited set of circumstances where I might do it again.  If 11 of my best friends in the whole world needed a 12th runner, I would do that for them.  But that just doesn’t seem to be how Ragnar works.  Even some of the best and fastest teams out there lost runners in the months or weeks before the race, for reasons I understand and reasons I have no clue about.  I do think it’s something everyone should make an effort to try once; but I am okay with checking that box, so to speak, and moving on to the next big thing.  I wish I could have bridged those gaps and made up the camaraderie where none existed, but that’s just not something I do well.  I wish all of my fellow van-mates well in their future runs and future Ragnars if they choose to do them.  Maybe I can volunteer next year, or something.

 

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[1] From the Ragnar Relay Series website, http://www.ragnarrelay.com/.