Friday, June 14, 2013

What REALLY goes on at Ragnar.

As a disclaimer, I had the best time at Ragnar.  My teammates all wrote blog posts that you can check out here that describe what it’s like to actually run Ragnar, their take on it, etc. 
I couldn’t have asked for a better team - each and every one of them was a delight!  The weather was great, our drivers were OFF THE HOOK amazing, and even our “theme” was super fun – who doesn’t love to run around with an American flag shouting “USA! USA!”  And don’t even get me started on our fantastic sponsors.  We were all dressed to the nine’s, and I am pretty sure we were equipped to handle anything because of their generosity.  You guys rock!
So, in short, there is lots of running and camaraderie and what not, but here is what REALLY happens when 9 ladies squeeze into a van, stop being nice, and start getting real.  (I’m just kidding.  Everyone was super nice!
1.       No matter what pre-portioned food you pack for yourself, someone will inevitably bring something way better, and everyone will pounce.  Hunger makes people crazy.  So if you are going to be that awesome person that makes pasta salad, be ready for a pack of wolves hungry runner ladies to descend on you like it’s feeding time in the Serengeti.  (are there wolves in the Serengeti?  I don’t know.  It just sounded way more exotic than central Wisconsin.)  Thanks for the pasta salad, Suzanne.  Sorry we ate it all.

2.       As the event starts out, you will discretely find a rest room to change in.  Especially if one of your teammates husbands is driving.   But by the end, you will be ass naked, rolling around in the back of a van.  In broad daylight.  Because you have lost any sense of shame or modesty at this point.  If vans had ceiling fans, there would be undies hanging from them.  It’s like burning man, only your stuck in a van, and most likely not on drugs.  And we might have smelled better than burning man (which says a lot, as about half-way through this thing, our driver said we smelled like a bunch of sweaty babies, whatever that means.)
bra's on the ceiling!
3.       You will yell at boyscouts when they tell you it will take 30 minutes to make a veggie burger.  Don’t judge, you weren’t there*.  But in all honestly, they are pre-cooked and just need to be re-heated! Life lesson!  

Stolen from Kelly, because i ate mine too fast.
*it wasn’t me who yelled at the kids, I know you all figured it was though.

4.       You will see majestic sunrises….

5.       But you will also learn what a poop mountain is.  Thanks, Maggie.  I am still having nightmares.  If you don't know what it is, enjoy that.  Because you can never get that innocence back.

6.       You’re going to take a Ke$ha shower.  Whether that means wiping yourself down with baby wipes, or covering yourself with glitter and fake tattoos, either way, its going to happen at Ragnar.  (What IS the actual definition of a Ke$ha shower?  Help me out, Urban Dictionary!)

Those are stink lines, not sun-rays
7.       You will take two work calls WHILE running your first leg.  Then you will scream at your boss about how you are running an ultra marathon relay race, and can't deal with client demands while in motion.  Oh wait, that was just me??

8.       Obviously, you will need to wear sunglasses and a reflective vest at the same time.

9.       You will fly into a two hour rage until somebody finds you coffee and pancakes.

Liquid calm.
10.   And lastly, you will return home to find all the beer has been drank in your absence, and replaced with swill.  DAMN YOU JORDAN!!!
 So go run Ragnar.  You can eat twizzlers for breakfast, and no one will judge you for it.


13 comments:

  1. I was all smiles until I saw the Natty Ice..the horror!

    As a dad, I'm not sure what a sweaty baby smell is either! But a Ke$ha bath had to have helped!

    I hope nobody was hurt in your rage for coffee and pancakes!

    Hilarious recap! thanks for taking the time to write it!

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  2. Twizzlers for breakfast? Ke$ha showers? I'm in!

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  3. Sounds about right. Excellent recap!

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  4. It sounds like you guys had the best time! I have loved the recaps.

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  5. I am running two Ragnars this year and I am so excited. I am sure that they will be exactly like Hood to Coast, but I am still excited. My favorite snack food to bring is gummy bears. People pounce on those suckers!

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  6. All of that is so true. At Ragnar in 2011, I am 90% sure I flashed my boobs to all of downtown Lake Forest. It happens. And last year I think I survived solely on the trail mix provided by one of my teammates.

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  7. You make it sound so awesome! "It’s like burning man, only your stuck in a van, and most likely not on drugs" yeah... I now have a pretty good picture of what went down at ragnar :)

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  8. Sounds like a blast, one of these days I will actually get to done one of these!!

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  9. Love this post!!! I laughed out loud so many times!!!

    That sucks that you ended up having to take phone calls from work WHILE you were running, though. But it sounds so hard-core to say "ultramarathon relay"!!! =)

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  10. Best ragnar recap. And I'm still laughing about the sunglasses and reflective vest. It just seemed so ridiculous! I wouldn't be dark for 2 hours!

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    1. I still can't believe you took work calls during your first leg!!

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  11. Luckily I don't think any of us actually EXPERIENCED a poop mountain. I never have, just read about it on the wonderful internet. I think I would take a bath in bleach if I ever did.

    Although seeing people come out of that port-o-pottie on the LF Path, KNOWING what it looked like before they went in ... makes me want to bathe in bleach, and I didn't even set foot IN that port-o-pottie. And those people probably weren't even running Ragnar.

    Also, I'm pretty sure I just skipped right to getting naked in the back of the van. Didn't even try to be modest. But I've changed in my car in public many times, once while parked next to Lincoln Park before an evening 5K. I had to time it so I wasn't too naked when the CTA busses barreled past my car.

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