Tuesday, October 17, 2017

The Bridges of York County

This fall we decided to make things really interesting** by planning two out of state races less than two weeks apart!   No sooner had the sisters somewhat unpacked from Boston, did we find ourselves packing up again to hit some hard core trails on a 24 hour Ragnar Relay adventure and boy did things get... interesting**!

**interesting in this context means occasionally overwhelming, somewhat stressful, totally exhausting, but still SUPER AWESOME.

Speaking of adventure, I stole this definition from some dictionary website because you need a full understanding of this to appreciate our most recent outing:
ad·ven·tur·ous
adˈven(t)SHərəs,ədˈven(t)SHərəs/
adjective
  1. willing to take risks or to try out new methods, ideas, or experiences.


    synonyms:daringdaredevilintrepidventuresomeboldfearlessbraveunafraid,dauntless

For a Ragnar Relay on trails you must be all of these things and so much more because you and seven of your coolest friends run a little over 16 miles each during a roughly 24-hour period of time in various forests, fields and woodlands across the US and Canada!  So when you head out to complete one of these races, you not only need to be adventurous and fearless, you must also be flexible, easy going, and goofy. This ensures that the fun isn't lost among the scary wilderness, bodily fluids and hard core miles you run!  

This year we were onward to South Carolina which did not disappoint... once we actually got there! However, getting there was a huge challenge.  Huge.  Before I ever left my driveway, the van had to be jumped because the battery was dead and my Garmin watch band fell off.  I met up with the middle of the mitten clan who were also late for different reasons and we started our journey southward.  Despite our rough start, spirits were still high and we chatted and joked back and forth on our super high-tech walkie talkies. Breaker Breaker 9.9... Ohio brought an unfortunate puking incident, but we powered through! Nothing was going to stop us from running this race! 

We also encountered a car fire along the way and decided to follow a google maps recommended detour.  For the record, I don't recommend ever attempting a google maps detour, but that is wisdom acquired from this recent experience; At the time, I was ignorant and Google claimed it would save us 2 hours....

A saying for the rest of our weekend was, "at least we weren't in the car that was on fire, or that semi that went off the side of the mountain road!"  Worth mentioning at this point is the fact that three of our runners chose to fly to the race because they needed to work Thursday.  They spent four hours traveling while we spent fourteen, but who is counting?  Me and Mird that's who. We counted and we spent an extra 10 hours traveling to this blooming race! Damn Flyers anyways....

This excruciatingly painful travel experience led to this:

Sisterhood Travel Clause 1.0

When traveling 8 hours or more to a race, the sisters will fly to the race or otherwise transport themselves in a manner that will preserve their ability to run the damn race.


Obviously, we did actually make it to South Carolina and when we arrived and awkwardly removed our aching bodies from our cars, I learned I had been upgraded and was in the VIP section!!! Yes, Dominica and Ivar not only set up an impressive camp, but they also had an extra bed with my name on it! We carb loaded on a batch of carbonara, chatted and got to bed so we would be ready to RUN come morning!

Dawn brought an ungodly hot and humid morning and a sun that was determined to cook us runners.  As our lead off runner, I thought I was well prepared, but soon learned that I was not. I fell in the first quarter mile, tried unsuccessfully to push my pace and by the time I entered the transition tent, I was overheated, stumbling and ready to call it quits. Everyone knew it had not gone well because I was not smiling and apparently I ALWAYS SMILE when I run.  The other two legs I ran were at 7ish PM and 3ish AM. It was dark for both which was advantageous because the sun was not beating down on me, but also challenging because it was pitch black out and we were running on rugged trails.  

For a Ragnar Trail Team each member completes the same THREE LOOPS in South Carolina the loops were:  a Red-6.7 mile loop, a Yellow-6 mile loop and a Green-3.3 mile loop for a total of 16 miles each! The trails were moderately difficult, nicely maintained and well marked. There were several water stations along the course, but I was never able to locate one. Lack of hydration was only problematic for me the first day when it was 86 with full sun, my body hurt everywhere and I felt like I was dying. Additionally, there was a hill that extended for the last 1/3 of a mile (for all three loops because they converged about a half mile from the transition tent) which made the finish challenging.  Every. Single. Time. 

I am not generally a big statistics kind of gal, but I realize a lot of people are so here are a few cool  Ragnar 2017 Stats:

  • 27 hours in a van oftentimes driven by Vern who has a bad driving reputation
  • 1 falafel induced digestive case (yours truly)
  • Finish Time 26 hours 4 minutes/23rd out of 41 teams in our division
  • We finished 1 Hour and 13 minutes faster than we did last year in Wisconsin

We took a poll and the Best team names from 2017:

  • Bad Ass Mother Runners
  • Beer Investigation Bureau (we beat them in the race, but not in beer consumption!)
  • Worst Pace Scenario
  • 7 Chicks and a Richard (haha-- last year we were literally 7 chicks and a Richard!)

Worst Team Names:
  • Auburn Alumni (unoriginal name, but really nice guys)
  • Running down our leg (Gross, yuck isn't this inappropriate!)

Now at this point in time, you may be wondering why the title is, "The Bridges of York County"?! Or you may not have even noticed the title and up until this very instance you were completely clueless.  Either way is fine because I am about to explain regardless....

To understand the title, we  must travel back to the fateful night when we signed up for this whole South Carolina adventure.  Picture the Sisters, our spouses and our brother and his wife all enjoying a few adult beverages at our Staycation Christmas party.  We all reminisced about cool stuff from 2016 and were having a jolly good time doing so. Somehow (I am not sure how because I hardly ever talk about running) we stumbled on the memory of the Ragnar adventure in Wisconsin. As Mird and I reminisced about how great it was, someone suggested, "we should all do one next year?!.." well one beer led to another and we spent a bit of time researching which Ragnar Trail Relays were in the fall and of course which sounded coolest. We were having an impossible time of it trying to choose just one, until we clicked on South Carolina and we saw the bridges!  Oh the bridges!  

We are lifelong Indiana Jones fans. Lifetime fans, and the photos for the South Carolina race shows a glorious rope suspension bridge almost identical to the one in Temple of Doom.  Well, it took us a couple more drinks, uh I mean super responsible adult conversations and the next thing you know we've signed Team Awesome up to run those bridges, just like Indy did! 

In case you've been living under a rock and have no idea what bridges I am talking about check this picture out! Or in case, much like me, you drool at the mere thought of Indiana Jones, you can stare for awhile too, just wipe your chin off when you're done!  Everyone else you can continue on enjoying the story, this picture was probably unnecessary for you.

The bridges were the deal maker in our signing up for this race; they got us to the starting line.  And well, we were running in York County, South Carolina  (I was able to learn more quickly by talking to racers than Mark did with his fancy smart phone so this is further support for my anti-smart phone campaign) so the Bridges of York County seemed to be the perfect title.


When we signed up, we had four people on board and we needed to finish our team off obviously with the right four individuals to ensure a most epic adventure.  It took us about 6 months but sometime in late July we filled the roster to include (in the order in which we ran):  Vern, Dominica, Mark (Mird's hubby), Mird, Courtney, Marlene, Sheri and Richard. We were:  Team Awesome, Friends At Slow Paces, Not In It To Win It, Birthday Bashers, Michigan Misfits...but regardless of what you call us, we were now a team which was excellent because race day was fast approaching!

We all did our own training. Some training plans were more extensive and developed than others.  Yes, our training  programs ranged from people taking a weekend break from hard core marathon training (Richard and Marlene) to someone who literally got off the couch and showed up on the right day. I guess that runner might be what you call a late bloomer!  In the end, it mattered not, because everyone did awesome, just like we knew we would!  

Team Friends at Slow Paces 
Ivar (volunteer) Richard (speed demon) Courtney (always shows up) Dominica (the runner and a sister) Mark (Lineman) Mird (one of the sisters), Vern (the other sister) Sheri (Camp Mom) Marlene (she completes us)


Above:  For the starting line, Vern sports clothes from the original Team Awesome!  



The Sisters
Fort Mills, South Carolina
State Number 10 


 
I just put the picture above in as proof water stations existed...although I was never able to get a visual on one....and I nearly died of dehydration on the first leg because of my failure to do so!



I will leave you with this, the two most important equations I learned while running in the deep dark forests of South Carolina. 

 Falafel sandwiches+Running=Poop Emoji + Fart sounds


and

Bridges+Running= Awesomesauce - (the jelly leg factor)


Vern Out



No comments:

Post a Comment