{"id":2813,"date":"2011-08-24T21:01:18","date_gmt":"2011-08-25T02:01:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/?p=2813"},"modified":"2011-08-24T21:01:18","modified_gmt":"2011-08-25T02:01:18","slug":"2011-ragnar-great-river-leg-5-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/2011\/2011-ragnar-great-river-leg-5-recap\/","title":{"rendered":"2011 Ragnar Great River Leg 5 Recap"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the 2011 Ragnar Relay – Great River<\/a> edition I was the number 5 runner. \u00a0This is a different leg than I had last year and was the longest overall distance for the team. \u00a0An 8 mile, 6 mile, and 7 mile run sounded pretty intimidating and my first run was the worst.<\/p>\n

Our team (MN Rocks) started in Winona at 9am and our lead off runner started us off quite well. \u00a0By the time it was my turn to run (at 1:30pm) the sun had been out beating down on us for hours and with there being virtually no shade along the road I prepared for an 8 mile run in rough conditions. \u00a0I had hydrated throughout the day and it the toilet a few times so I felt prepared for whatever Ragnar could throw at me.<\/p>\n

Here is a map and the elevation chart (this chart looks bad, but the graph is only 200 feet – so the elevation spikes are pretty minimal).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I started out a little too fast which probably doesn’t surprise anyone who’s followed me for awhile. \u00a0But I did realize this and try to slow myself down. \u00a0I felt comfortable and that was pretty much my goal – to stay comfortable and try to hit 8:30 pace for most of the run. We ran through the cute little town of Alma to start the run. \u00a0The first part of this leg was on the Mississippi River which was beautiful (when the trains weren’t passing by). \u00a0The rest of the leg was near a smaller river and marshy land.<\/p>\n

I was carrying water in my hand held water bottle and was drinking from it regularly, but by mile 4 I was really starting to feel the heat. \u00a0I started picking points up ahead and forcing myself to run to it and repeating that process. \u00a0After 3 or 4 times I realized it was unrealistic to continue doing that for 4 more miles and picked one more point and walked for a bit. \u00a0I walked, took my Gu, and drank a lot of water from my bottle.<\/p>\n

I ended up walking 3 times before the end of my run. \u00a0One of the other vans let me squeeze a wet towel over my head\/back and that helped cool me off! Thanks dude who let me use the towel! \u00a0This leg did have 2 water stops along the way which was nice. \u00a0The volunteers at these stops weren’t super-excited, but it was hot. \u00a0Most of the volunteers along the way were super-energetic and excited to be a part.<\/p>\n

After the last time walking I ran for what seemed like a mile and decided that at the short little power line pole if I couldn’t see the exchange area I would take a short break. \u00a0As I turned the corner a little more I could see the bright orange vests of the spotters and knew I was within striking distance. \u00a0Each exchange has a set of spotters about 400 yards ahead of the exchange who communicate back to the exchange what runners are coming up so that the teammate is ready and waiting in the exchange chute!<\/p>\n

Boy was I glad to be done, in the shade, and drinking some cool water!! \u00a0After relaxing for a few minutes, we hopped into the van and drove ahead to cheer on Aaron. \u00a0The problem with Ragnar is that you don’t get a lot of time to stretch and relax after your specific run. \u00a0I did take the opportunity to get out of the van and stretch while we waited for Aaron to pass us.<\/p>\n

Here are a few random pictures from the first 1\/3 of Ragnar:<\/p>\n

Starting line:
\n\"Starting<\/a><\/p>\n

Nick getting ready to start:
\n\"Getting<\/a><\/p>\n

The First Exchange:
\n\"Exchange\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Once we passed the slap bracelet off to Van 2, we stopped at the Nelson Creamery<\/a> for some much deserved air conditioning and real food!
\n\"Nelson<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Enhanced<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the 2011 Ragnar Relay – Great River edition I was the number 5 runner. \u00a0This is a different leg than I had last year and was the longest overall distance for the team. \u00a0An 8 mile, 6 mile, and 7 mile run sounded pretty intimidating and my first run was the worst. Our team […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[13,37,544],"tags":[751,616,63,62],"class_list":["post-2813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-running","category-race-review","category-ragnar","tag-ragnar","tag-relay","tag-road-running","tag-running"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4iaAv-Jn","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2823,"url":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/2011\/2011-great-river-ragnar-relay-leg-29\/","url_meta":{"origin":2813,"position":0},"title":"2011 Great River Ragnar Relay Leg 29","author":"crossn81","date":"August 26, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"It is always a relief to start the last leg of Ragnar. \u00a0You are almost done with a great challenge and by this point everyone is starting to get excited. \u00a0You are exhausted - but the hope of a few more road kills and the knowledge that you are back\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "My Running"","block_context":{"text":"My Running","link":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/category\/my-running\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Blue Sky","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6207\/6070560231_ae8b100058_m.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2301,"url":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/2010\/ragnar-great-river-my-running-legs\/","url_meta":{"origin":2813,"position":1},"title":"Ragnar Great River – My Running Legs","author":"crossn81","date":"August 25, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"This will be the first in at least two posts about Ragnar. The basics of a relay race is that you split up the 193 mile race into more doable segments. \u00a0Ragnar's Great River Relay is broken into 36 legs which get split up between 12 runners (or 6 in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "My Running"","block_context":{"text":"My Running","link":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/category\/my-running\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Inflated Logo","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4115\/4926589992_8cfb8b7887_m.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2819,"url":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/2011\/2011-ragnar-great-river-leg-17\/","url_meta":{"origin":2813,"position":2},"title":"2011 Ragnar – Great River Leg 17","author":"crossn81","date":"August 25, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Running a 10k at night, on a gravel road, in the middle of no where sounds pretty boring, lonely, and a little scary. If you do it alone. \u00a0Fortunately, for me I only had to run the first 1.5 miles alone. \u00a0That was a very lonely stretch. \u00a0There were no\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "10K"","block_context":{"text":"10K","link":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/category\/10k\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/leg17mapelevation-300x297.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1909,"url":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/2010\/ragnarworldvision\/","url_meta":{"origin":2813,"position":3},"title":"Very Crazy Idea – I need YOUR Help","author":"crossn81","date":"March 24, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Dear friend who may or may not occasionally run, I decided to do something a little crazy, especially since I've been suffering from Plantar Fasciitis and my knee randomly swelled up on me recently. I signed up a team for the Ragnar Relay - Great River edition. On August 20\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Charity"","block_context":{"text":"Charity","link":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/category\/charity\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ragnarrelay.com\/i\/races\/river\/title.gif?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2806,"url":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/2011\/weekly-report-26\/","url_meta":{"origin":2813,"position":4},"title":"Weekly Report","author":"crossn81","date":"August 22, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"With the Ragnar Relay looming at the end of the week I didn't want to expend too much energy training - specifically running. \u00a0I ended up with a lot lower all around mileage than expected though. \u00a0I did a fair amount of riding around town doing errands with Nadia attached\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "My Running"","block_context":{"text":"My Running","link":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/category\/my-running\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3383,"url":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/2010\/lake-pepin-ragnar-friday\/","url_meta":{"origin":2813,"position":5},"title":"Lake Pepin #ragnar – Friday","author":"crossn81","date":"August 23, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Friday I ran the Ragnar Relay, which was a lot of fun and adventures. \u00a0I'm quite glad I was able to get a team together and run the 193 miles from Winona to Minneapolis. \u00a0This was at Exchange 12 in Stockholm, WI on the shores of Lake Pepin. \u00a0Some people\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "365"","block_context":{"text":"365","link":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/category\/365\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Cimg1101","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/getfile0.posterous.com\/getfile\/files.posterous.com\/teamcross365\/0VNTkrfytl5pgAMRtACzN4grBWN8631zAHdwx3Q4LD8fcXASbv4mEEzy9SIy\/CIMG1101.jpg.scaled.500.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2813"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2818,"href":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2813\/revisions\/2818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}