Over the weekend, I joined a team to run the Ragnar Tennessee relay from Chattanooga to Nashville. Even though I had confidence for the mileage, I have to admit, running in the middle of the night, sleeping in a van, and doing all this with 11 new friends (and 1 old) was a little out of my comfort zone !
There were moments, like running for 5 miles on a pitch black farm road outside Nashville, I wondered what I was doing! But that’s what it’s all about, and I was happy to come out of it with new friends, a renewed interest in running, and a new idea of how to share the sport with other people!
If you have the chance to be a part of a team, take it and run with it! I wasn’t sure exactly how things would work out but I had a lot of trust for my team captain and I didn’t doubt my legs. It’s something new and different and you’re almost guaranteed to walk away with a new perspective.
Looking at videos we took of passing the relay baton (actually a snap bracelet) I realized I barreled into the exchange every time like truck! It’s 200 miles, not a high school track, so I think slowing down for a high five and a graceful hand off is probably the way to go.
An unofficial motto of the race is Run, Eat, Sleep? Repeat. I know I need a little shuteye, and passing out when I wasn’t running to get it worked for me.
Dry Clothes are a OK substitute for showering...
Between legs of the race, we hardly got a chance to shower (except afterwards at a truck stop!!) this isn’t something I practiced in training, but I found at least taking off my sweaty clothes right away and putting clean ones was weird but really helped.
Take turns DJing
I am allll about the jams. I run out of things to say pretty quickly but I never run out of songs! Thinking back on the weekend, I was maybe too eager to try out my new playlists on my new team and see what vibed. Some of my fav parts ended up being new songs I learned or revisited when I didn’t control the music!
Hunt for fruit and veg
The road trip slash marathon aspect of the race made it easy to turn into a junk food fest (we were running! we had tons of downtime! gas station snacks! And if you are prepared, then live it up! I found myself thinking WHAT HAVE I DONE after indulging a few too many road trip snack cravings then getting ready to run (soft licorice and little Debbie oatmeal cookie sandwiches!!) it makes sense, but I think preparing a bit for this could have helped!
Yes to shared photo albums!
There aren’t photographers on the course, but on between team of 12 people with cameras on their phones we got reat pictures, I discovered when out team captain set up a photo share.
It’s OK to shower at a truck sto
the only thing you have to fear is fear itself, but also there’s always packing flip flop
tretch your legs
Walk around, skate, bike, run an extra lap, there’s a lot of time to structured into the race and it helps with the van stir crazies.
GO WITH I
There will definitely be hiccups for even the best prepared! This time, my flight was cancelled for a snowstorm, I booked the wrong outgoing city, and as a team we faced being in smaller vans because the rental company mixed up our. requests. Even the best plans are subject to things that can’t be helped, so above all making things work is the way to go! It’s always an adventure and it worked out perfectly!