Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Ragnar Napa

I love running relays.  If I could find 11 people that had the passion and some discretionary spending money and wanted to do 5-6 a year, I would be after it.  I'm sure I've spilled my woes of Captaining a team on here in little snippets but I haven't done much of a full on post about it.  I wouldn't want anyone to get the wrong idea - because I LOVE running relays.  

I hate being a captain.  
I love to organize and put together ideas.  I am just OCD enough that I'll spend a day figuring out how far hotels are from the closest major exchange, how long each van will be out running and what would be the best place to go if we needed to crash.  I will love EVERY minute of it too.  I also enjoy finding, or trying to find, a great deal so that the trip is affordable for everyone.   I love thinking of decorations, names and t-shirts.  

I hate finding all the runner spots and collecting money.  The first race I ran I wasn't the captain and 12 people from the ICU I worked at ran it and committed up front.  The second one I had a friend from that race that brought a bunch of her friends and it filled up. The next one, not a captain and I was actually filling in for an injured runner. This race was pretty difficult.  Lots of people encouraged me to captain another team so I did, and I shelled out the over 1200.00 to buy the team and then started working to fill it up.  There were a few that bailed and a few that just couldn't do it.  Then I had the 50 other runner's that just didn't answer or respond to any emails.  Pet Peeve alert!  

BUT that is over now.  I lucked out.  I found 2 vans that are going to be full of awesome people.  Each person has been kind, generous and grateful for the work I've put into it.  I think the secret is, I'll probably get more from it then I ever put into it.  New best friends, expanded running circle and an experience that is so unique and challenging that I will never forget it.   In the movie "Hood to Coast", Rachel gets in the van after a very challenging middle of the night hill run and she is just beaming!  "It was Awesome!"  That is what it is, it's awesome.  I would guess any person can make their experience what they want it to be.  I choose to go for the very best.  I know I'll be tired, grumpy, sore, hungry and irritated.  I will not become a raging bitch.   (YEAH for my team!)  I saw a lot of that going on at the Wasatch Ragnar and it made me sad.  The smaller relay's tend to have hoards of just crazy happy people.  You don't even need booze or drugs (well, ibuprofen)!

All my duties of head honcho are winding down and it's almost go time.  I've done it enough now that I'm not nervous about not having the right stuff or forgetting something.  I'm confident I can finish my legs and my foot will hurt but won't slow me down too much.   I'm pretty sure I'm just as excited to get to know my new friends as I am to get this party started!

I'll definitely be posting updates on my blog, twitter and Facebook.  They will probably be from my phone, so they aren't as fancy as I can make them on this here laptop.  (totally hilarious, since I'm just not much of an Internet, tech person)


These bottles are going on this van.
My daughter is holding one of the inflatables and standing by the van so that the peeps that haven't experienced the Mystery Machine could get an idea what we are in for. 

Lets get this party started!!

Blog on.............


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