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Ragnar Great River Relay Race Report

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Kenny B.
Alex Kubacki
Jim Lentz
ChasMcG
Nick Morris
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Post  Nick Morris Mon Aug 22, 2011 9:16 pm

Ragnar Great River Relay Report

This was the first time that I had ever ran a relay race before, so everything that I experienced was new to me. My team consisted of 6 men and 6 women. All of us were over 30 years of age, so that put us in the Mixed Submasters Division. There were a total of 295 teams that were entered in the race. Our team was split into two different vans with six people in each. I was in van 2 and was runner #8.

We started in Winona, MN at 1:00pm on Friday and crossed over the Mississippi River into Wisconsin, where we followed the river bluffs north all the way to Hudson, WI. From there, we crossed the St. Croix river into Minnesota and made our way to the finish in Minneapolis.

My first leg was at around 7:40pm on Friday and consisted of 5.2 miles. Even though it was my shortest leg, I think it was the most difficult. This is mostly due to the two huge hills that I had to run. (see the elevation below). I ran this leg with an average pace of 7:06 min/mile. The last mile was at a 6:22 pace.

My second leg was at around 3:30 in the morning. Yes, I said 3:30am!! The leg consisted of 9.2 miles in pitch black conditions. All I had was my head lamp to guide the way. There was on challenging hill (see elevation below) at the beginning and then 4 miles of downhill to end the leg. I finished this leg with a 7:08 pace.

My third and last leg was a 6 miler at 11:30am on Saturday. The first two miles were relatively flat. A little after mile two I entered a wooded bike trail that led down to the Mississippi River in St. Paul, MN. The last 4 miles were all downhill. Even though I was exhausted by the time that I started this leg, I was cruising by the downhill and found an extra gear in the woods. I was cruising at a 6:39 average pace through the first 5 of the 6 miles, when all of the downhill miles caught up with me. My left quad had had enough and started to cramp up on me. I had to slow up to around a 7:50 pace. This slowed my overall pace down to 6:50, but I was still happy with the run.

Our team ended up placing 33rd overall and 2nd in our division. It was a great experience and I am definitely going to do it again next year. All of the downhills are going to help me out with my marathon this October (Steamtown). Plus, it was good to race when my body was totally exhausted. I ended up only getting about 1.5 hours of crappy sleep in around a 40 hour period!!

I did not anticipate the course to have as many difficult hills as it did. It was definitely challenging.

Leg 1 Elevation
Ragnar Great River Relay Race Report 5_2_bm10

Leg 2 Elevation
Ragnar Great River Relay Race Report 9_2_bm10



I don't have Leg 3 elevation, because my Garmin lost signal in the forrest.
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Post  ChasMcG Mon Aug 22, 2011 11:40 pm

Sounds like a fun race! I didn't realize you had 3 legs to yourself. Awesome job! Pretty good pace for not being able to see much too. Those head lamps are worthless I think so to keep that pace in the dark and little light is huge! You're on the road to a huge PR in Steamtown!
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Post  Jim Lentz Tue Aug 23, 2011 9:50 am

Great job, Nick! The hills look tough to me.
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Post  Alex Kubacki Fri Aug 26, 2011 7:32 am

Great job Nick. What did you do in between relay legs?
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Post  Kenny B. Fri Aug 26, 2011 11:13 am

Awesome job and yes those are some good hearty hills to flatten out!
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Post  Nick Morris Fri Aug 26, 2011 11:56 am

Alex Kubacki wrote:Great job Nick. What did you do in between relay legs?

Thanks Alex...
I was the second runner in my van, so after my leg I would hop back in the van and we would move forward and give support to the next runner. We then drive ahead and drop off the next runner for their leg and pick up the runner who had just finished their leg. This continues until everyone in our van is done with there leg. At that time we hand off to the next van and we move forward about 30-40 miles to the next exchange point, where the other van will hand off to us. At that time we finally have some down time for rest, food, and drink. The amount of rest is really determined on how fast the other van runs. I think on average we had around 3 hours of actual downtime before the other van caught up. Personally, I had around 6 hours to recover between each leg.
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Post  Dave-O Mon Sep 05, 2011 12:51 pm

Relays are definitely a lot of fun. Sounds like your team had fun and placed quite well.
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Post  Michael Enright Mon Sep 05, 2011 1:02 pm

One of the Ragnar Relay routes goes very close to my town, and I've really been interested in running it. I think your race report may have convinced me that I should do it next year - it sounds like just the kind of crazy stuff I'd really enjoy. Congrats.
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Post  dot520 Mon Sep 05, 2011 4:20 pm

You did some really great racing, Nick! I can only imagine that even though you're exhausted, you're probably running on adrenalin as well. The 3:30 am leg would probably be the most novel...can't say I've ever been out running at that hour. So...how many hours did you sleep when you got home?
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Post  mountandog Mon Sep 05, 2011 7:09 pm

Good race Nick. You've inspired me to sign up for a relay sometime in 2012!!
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Post  Nick Morris Mon Sep 05, 2011 7:22 pm

dot520 wrote:You did some really great racing, Nick! I can only imagine that even though you're exhausted, you're probably running on adrenalin as well. The 3:30 am leg would probably be the most novel...can't say I've ever been out running at that hour. So...how many hours did you sleep when you got home?



10.5 hours...it's the most that I have slept in a long time Smile
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