Ragnar Cape Cod Recap

Ragnar Cape Cod was, in a word, fabulous! I was worried that it would not live up to my memories of Ragnar DC, but it did and then some.

I met up with the lovely ladies of Moms Do It All Night Long at the start line early on Friday morning.  Several of us had decided to wear our DC shirts, so we looked awesome together.  I may now also own the skirt that the others were wearing…

We made our way through all of the steps and then saw Deborah off at the start line.

The rest of us jumped in the van and headed to the first exchange. For the next 36 hours, it would seem like we were either exchanging a runner or hitting a Dunkin Donuts. Yeah, we hit a few of those. (Pretty sure Deborah holds the record for number of lattes though.)

I was runner 4, so it wasn’t long before it was time for my first run. Thanks to a last minute change by Ragnar, I had a shorter run and runner 3 had a longer one. Even more confusing was that it was a “make your own exchange”. This would be my only real complaint from the weekend. Ragnar should have made it clearer exactly where the meetups should happen.

After we finally found our runner, I headed off – straight uphill.  In fact, I’d be running uphill for the first two miles. We all know how much I love hills and I quickly discovered that my legs were not as recovered as I thought.

 

Thankfully, the second two miles were flat to downhill and I finished.

 

 

I was having issues with my hip and my quads, but Deborah quickly took care of that for me.

Soon we were done with our first set of Ragnar Cape Cod legs. We handed off to Van 2 at an extremely windy, cold exchange.

I may have gone on a bit of a shopping spree because I was cold. Then we headed for lunch and the next big exchange.

I was able to grab a shower and put on some clean clothes, ahh. It felt so good to be clean and fed.

A few of our team got some shut eye, but I was busy socializing. I ran into one of my close friends and her team at the exchange.  So funny to see her randomly there!

Not much after that we headed out on our next set of legs. By the time mine came around, it was full dark. My leg ran next to a busy road, so I never felt alone, but my eyes had real issues with the ever changing light from the headlights. I ended up finishing faster than I expected because I got tired of being passed and stuck to the last guy who passed me for the last half mile LOL.

After we finished another round of legs, it was pizza time! I’m not sure if it was because it was the middle of the night or because I was so hungry, but it was perhaps the best pizza I’d ever had! Then it was off to another exchange to wait for Van 2.

Most of the team decided to catch some shut eye, but I opted for another shower.

 

It felt so good to be clean and warm (the weather kept swinging from hot to cold, depending on the wind and sun.) I did not even try to sleep at this point.

Next thing we knew, it was time for Deborah to head out again for a middle of the night run.  It was misty and chilly by the time she finished, so I spent the next couple of hours trying to figure out what I was going to wear and hoping that our runners would be slow enough that it would be light when I ran again. I got lucky and the sun was just rising as I started my last run!  My last run was close to 6 miles on a “rails to trails” type path. If I hadn’t been so tired, I would have loved it. The weather was perfect for running (slightly chilly and misty) and the path was beautiful.  I was, however, so happy to see the exchange.  Bam! I was done running.

After we handed off to Van 2 one last time, we headed to Provincetown. I may have used Shower Pills in a bathroom in a gas station to get presentable for the finish line. I may not have been the only one. Just sayin’.

Beer Geek met us in P’town for breakfast and then we headed to the Ragnar Cape Cod finish line to wait for Van 2.

 

While I was waiting, I got to meet Megan, one of my readers, which was really cool.

Around 12:30, we ran through the finish chute, got our medals, and that was the end of my second Ragnar!

 

Once again, Ragnar did not disappoint! Such a fun race with my awesome teammates and Ragnar Cape Cod is an awesome choice of races to do.  I can’t wait to run Ragnar DC in the fall!