Feb 28th, 2010 8:55pm

An almost endless string of events had to occur for me to participate in this years Ragnar Del Sol.  If my I hadn't turned down the job I did to take the job I have.  If I hadn't met McCoy there, if he hadn't met Jon, if Jon hadn't turned to running when he did.  If my life or theirs had taken one of a million other turns I have no doubt that I wouldn't have had one of the best experiences of my life.

I've talked about the Ragnar here before.  Its a 200 mile long relay race where teams of 12 go 24-7 from Prescott to Mesa (the long way).  I've been training hard to prepare for it this last month or two since McCoy invited me along.  I've also been wondering most that time if it was going to be enough.

In a sense, anyone can finish the Ragnar.  All you have to do is walk a couple of miles.  But to really finish - to experience this absurdity as it was intended you have to run it out, eat/sleep/live in your van and deck your ride out in as many bad puns as humanly possible.  For some that's easy, but for others like myself who are new to this running business - the 14 to 20 miles that's required in 36 sleepless hours is no small accomplishment.  Fortunately I had one hell of a team to keep me laughing and loving it the whole time.

While there are 12 people on each team, your real tribe becomes your van-mates.  Our van (van #1) was made up mostly of my friends from work: Cupp, Scott, Nemo and McCoy.  McCoy also recruited Meredith to keep us honest and heterogeneous.  We were a bit worried at first that Meredith would feel a little overwhelmed by our special brand of comradery, but by the end of the trip she was definitely one of us.

We actually started the adventure a little early and after a well calculated pre-race dinner of wings and pizza we crashed out at my folks place in Prescott.  To bad that we didn't get up there till almost midnight and then everyone was too juiced to sleep much.  Luckily, the freezing morning air woke us up a bit and by 7am van 1 was officially running the Ragnar!

Props to Meredith for taking the first leg.  It was nearly dark and well below freezing when she started with about 10 other runners.  She took it on like a champ though, and just like that it was time to hand the Ragnar slap-wrap off to Cupp for leg 2.  He has run exactly twice since our ski trip due to the broken limb, and no one was really sure how he would do.  He really set the bar for our team though running out the entire uphill leg and finishing breathless.  The only words he could utter upon finishing were "hold me" HA!.

Nemo was next - we all owe him big time for taking on the hard hills and the longest runs of the day.  Hes a freaking ironman though so he handled it like a pro and by the time I got the "baton" we were well ahead of schedule.  I didn't want to be the slacker of the group so I pushed hard too.  The cool air, the adrenaline, the props from my teammates who stopped on the road ahead of me and cheered me on helped me put in my first sub-9 minute mile ever and an overall 9:30 min/mile pace.  Finishing up that first run and handing off the baton to Scott was the best feeling ever.  All that work brought to fruition - not alone but with friends all around.

Running though is only half the story.  Life in the van was as much a part of this journey as anything.  While 1 person runs, the other 5 move ahead to the next exchange point and basically goof off for 36 hours.  We consumed mass quantities of bugles, beef jerky, gatorade and all manner of power goo/cube/bar.  We told stories, talked about our runs, mercilessly made fun of each other and did out best to survive Nemo's odiferous eminations.

When McCoy finished his first leg it was time for the first full van exchange.  This is where Van #2 takes over and we are supposed to sleep/eat.  In reality this is where Van #2 takes over and we get drunk.  After the handover we spent a little time with our other half and then headed for the bar.  Some randomly cool establishment between Prescott and Wickenburg served us beer, played terrible country music an gave us a thankfully warm place to meet some of the other crazy bastards who participated in  this thing.

To sober up, we headed to the next exchange point and some folks pretended to sleep while the rest of us grilled, played hackey sack and generally goofed off some more.  Before long the sun was setting and it was back to the track.

Running at night across the desert was unforgettable.  We had to have flashlights and reflectors but the full moon provided most of the light that night and our ipods/androids kept us all company through some really long runs.  The only thing that put a damper on the fun was that one of the runners and a volunteer were hit by a car while trying to deliver some water.  Last we heard they were screwed up but not dead.  The police had to shut down the freeway though so things got unsurprisingly hectic as they routed everyone past the accident/closure.

There is so much more but Its all kind of blurry and nothing I can say will really get the experience across.  The van has been returned to its plain white past, the clothes have been boiled, and we've all had some unconscious time.  Still its hard to think of much else - the experience was the definition of amazing.  Thank you McCoy for setting this all up and to Meradith, Cupp, Nemo, and Scott for being the bad mofo's they are :)

For anyone interested - here are our final times/stats for Van 1:

Runner	Leg	Distance	Up	Down	Start	Time	Pace
-------------------Set 1-------------------
Meredith	1	3.6 miles	+178 ft	-164 ft	7:00 am	31:00 min	8:36/mile
B-Cupp	2	3.6 miles	+500 ft	-200 ft	7:31 am	40:00 min	11.06/mile
Nemo	3	6.6 miles	+829 ft	-879 ft	8:11 am	63:00 min	9:32/mile
Robo (me)	4	5.0 miles	+203 ft	-874 ft	9:14 am	48:00 min	9:36/mile
Scott	5	5.3 miles	+32 ft	-619 ft	10:02am	45:00 min	8:30/mile
McCoy	6	6.1 miles	+72 ft	-367 ft	10:47 am	48:00 min	7:52/mile
-------------------Set 2-------------------
Meradith	13	6.3 miles	+0 ft	-277 ft	5:30 pm	53:00 min	8:24/mile
B-Cupp	14	3.4 miles	+6 ft	-75 ft	6:23 pm	32:00 min	9:25/mile
Nemo	15	8.7 miles	+54 ft	-394 ft	6:55 pm	80:00 min	9:11/mile
Robo (me)	16	4.8 miles	+27 ft	-350 ft	8:15 pm	48:00 min	10:00/mile
Scott	17	7.4 miles	+228 ft	-404 ft	9:03 pm	64:00 min	8:38/mile
McCoy	18	3.3 miles	+261 ft	-159 ft	10:07 pm	28:00 min	8:30/mile
-------------------Set 3-------------------
Meradith	25	8.5 miles	+406 ft	-181 ft	5:13 am	78:00 min	9:10/mile
B-Cupp	26	4.2 miles	+453 ft	-76 ft	6:31 am	45:00 min	10:42/mile
Nemo	27	7.1 miles	+0 ft	-886 ft	7:16 am	57:00 min	8:01/mile
Robo	28	3.4 miles	+9 ft	-236 ft	8:13 am	34:00 min	10:00/mile
Scott	29	3.4 miles	+226 ft	-147 ft	8:47 am	31:00 min	9:07/mile
McCoy	30	6.3 miles	+386 ft	-329 ft	9:18 am	58:00 min	9:12/mile