A severe case of Ragnaritis.

Well, Ragnar Cape Cod has come and gone. It’s funny, both times I have run Ragnar it feels like some strange dream that I have experienced rather than an actual event. Seriously, these races are a wonderful whirlwind of craziness. You prep for months to pull a team of people together to conquer a relay of 200 miles then you line up at the start line & then you enter a time warp for the next 30-ish hours which leads to lots of inside jokes, crazy fun, & unforgettable memories (and maybe a few you want to forget…).

At the start line.

Right now I’m loving all the pictures that are appearing from my team over the weekend, still laughing when I think of the various things that happened during the race and honestly I’m going through a bit of Ragnar withdrawal. Good thing the next one is only a few short months away!! Until then, I think the only thing I can do is share the weekend through a few pictures which really will never serve to fully share the experience that is Ragnar nor will it truly capture all the fun and good times. Seriously, I think I walked away more sore from laughing than running the 20 miles that I covered during the race!

Greenman to Captain America Handoff!

Now in the aftermath of Ragnar, I am most certainly suffering a severe case of Ragnaritis…

Rag – nar – i – tis (n): Feelings of sadness and longing to be in a van with Ragnar teammates and friends when away from them. Ragnaritis is an emotional state that can affect your nerves, sleep, concentration, appetite and general health. It is a real manifestation of feeling ill and anxious. It usually occurs when you are sad about being away from the Ragnar experience (the sights, the sounds, the magic). You are especially vulnerable in the few days after finishing a Ragnar event. In all cases, the cure is to begin planning your next Ragnar team as soon as possible.

I guess it’s a good thing we’ve got an ADK Team for September!!

After my last leg!

The Cat Lady Crusader – Rockin out to the Cowbell!

Capes!

Doing our superhero thing.

192 miles, 28 hours and 13 minutes later… we’re done!

A Wedding & Biking to Nowhere.

After my run on Friday, scooted home, packed, and then jumped in the car with my friend to head to my little sister’s wedding!  I had convinced my friend that it would be a great idea to be my date for this wedding a little while back… after the chaos of the pre-wedding activities (rehearsal dinner, bridal party prep, etc) – I’m not sure he agreed but luckily the reception was a lot of fun and I’m pretty sure he didn’t walk away from the experience completely scared of my family…

The bridal party.

My sister and her husband have been dating since they were in high school, and were engaged shortly after they both finished college.  The wedding was a great time, and everything seemed to be planned perfectly.  My family teased her a bit during the planning process because we were pretty sure she had the entire thing planned out before she was engaged since she was able to secure all the primary preparations within 2 weeks of the engagement, and nailed just about every last detail.  But seriously, it was a great wedding with nothing left out or missed, both my sister and husband were beaming with happiness on Saturday and it was so awesome to see them finally get married!

My lil sister and my new brother!

While I was at home this weekend, it gave me the opportunity to finally pick up our Ragnar t-shirts!  The shirts came out perfectly!  I always use customink.com to design and order t-shirts for our various team events and they seem to nail them every time.  I would highly recommend this company if you need to make up shirts for anything, they seem to have pretty competitive pricing and allow for very small lots of shirts to be made up!  We’re 1 month away from Ragnar Cape Cod and I can’t wait! 

…. now to just finalize my superhero costumes…. have I ever mentioned how much I love Ragnar and the craziness & fun that you have while covering 200 miles with a team??  (Oh wait I have… here, and here, oh and here too…and there were a few more, but you can just search my blog for them if you’re really interested!)  

Ragnar Team Shirts!

When I returned home on Sunday I had a brick workout on the docket from my coach which consisted of a 2.5 hour bike ride with hill intervals on the trainer followed by a short run.  Needless to say, I was not excited about the prospect of getting on my bike trainer for 2.5 hours.  I had completed a 1:45 session a couple weeks ago which about killed me.  Biking to nowhere is no fun.  Especially when you try to do it for extended periods of time. 

After dragging my bike to the trainer and reluctantly changing into my workout gear I started the workout.  Now, I should also disclose that I gathered up a movie to watch, my ipad, magazines and my headphones so that I would have a multitude of distractions for my 2.5 hour sentence on the trainer.  As I got into the workout and the hill intervals, I was astonished.  The time started to just melt away.  I did catch up on some reading on the ipad and I listened to a few of my newer playlists that I downloaded from rockmyrun.com, but overall this workout really wasn’t bad, and I was SO happy at how fast the time did pass. 

After the bike ride, I grabbed a long sleeve shirt, threw some shorts over my spandex, tossed on my sneakers and hit the road.  Amazing.  I was really only supposed to run about 10 minutes, but I felt great.  The transition from biking to running can be painful sometimes, especially if you have not done it in a while, but I had zero pain and felt great so I pushed my run a bit to finish up 2 miles before I stopped.  I was amazed to see that I was hitting an 8:30 pace after the bike session – I guess this coaching thing might be working out for me!

How I made it through a 2.5 hr bike trainer session…

Yesterday, it was back to the grind of work, but the day was made better by the fact that it was sunny and finally felt like Spring in Syracuse!  After I got home from work, I went out to hang with Roxie in the backyard for a few minutes and was so happy to discover that the flowers around my house have started to appear.  The previous owner of my house really had a thing for landscaping and flowers, it’s awesome because every year there are different flowers that appear throughout the spring, summer and fall and there always seems to be something in bloom!

Hello Spring!

Roxie was pumped too about the flowers too… she also just loves to have her picture taken.  Seriously, do you know of any other dog that will just constantly pose for pictures?  I love it, but find it strange as well.  I know I am biased but I really do believe that she is the most photogenic dog ever.

Rox is super pumped about spring flowers too.

Because I want to take Wednesday night as a rest day to hang out with some friends and eat chicken wings, I moved my Wednesday workout to last night.  This meant I was back on the bike trainer for another 75 minute session. It’s strange, this 75 minutes felt waaaaayyyy longer than the 2.5 hours the night prior.  Not sure why, but it was painful.  Part of it was probably the fact I had back to back nights on the trainer, but oh well…

Roxie also expressed her displeasure by throwing various items into my back wheel while I was spinning.  This was the first time she’s ever done this and I think it scared us both.  Her first item was a rawhide chew and I thought my bike or the trainer had busted until I realized that she had thrown something at the bike.  Then she followed it with a couple of balls before resorting to trying to convince me that she is super cute and that we should be playing with her dinosaur.  She kills me, she definitely has the whole “feel bad for me and come play” look down pat.

Hey, don’t you want to play with me and my dino…?

Alright, well this week coming up marks 11 weeks to go until the Syracuse Half Ironman and my training continues.  I must admit I do love having a coach that sets up my plan and is available for consult.  I am doing workouts that I would have never come up with on my own and it is definitely helping me push myself further.  I don’t think I would have ever completed a 13 mile run this far in advance of the race or have planned these longer brick sessions at this point in the season, but my coach is really helping me show myself what I am capable of and showing me better and smarter ways to train for these mid to long distance endurance events.  Also, I’m still feeling great and my old nagging injuries have remained at bay so far (I’m knocking on wood night now to avoid jinxing this.). 

I guess I’m just having one of those moment where you realize that you don’t really know what you’re truly capable of until you try it.  I hope you all experience these milestone moments in your life – I’ve had a number through the years… the first time I ran a 5K without stopping, my first 10K, the first time I ran a full hour without stopping, and so on… it’s just amazing to think about where I have come from when I used to complain loudly about running a single mile and now where I might head as I train for this 70.3.

On that reminiscent note, I’m going to wrap up another long post (sorry).  Sometimes I think I should write more often with shorter posts, but this is what I can swing right now with my schedule… I hope you all had a stellar weekend (I know I did) and an even better week!

Training Plan – 11 weeks to go!

2 Seconds of Fame.

Literally.  2 seconds.  Ragnar posted their official promotion video for the Adirondacks race and as it turns out, myself and 2 of my ADK Ragnar teammates made the final cut of the video! Just check out the awesome pirates at 1:06 – and there we are!  Along with my cousin Don looking super sketchy in the background…  

Yes, our 2 seconds of fame proves that it does pay off to pester the videographer.  (Even if your 10 minute conversation is condensed down to a few seconds.)  

 

I have to admit, seeing this video has gotten me pumped up again for the next Ragnar relay – we’re only 2 months away from Ragnar Cape Cod!   T-Shirts have been ordered, the start time requested, vans obtained, house rented, now to just get all 12 of us to the start line uninjured, trained up, and ready to run, eat, sleep?, repeat!

Being a Ragnar Captain.

So, due to my lack of blogging last year, I really didn’t talk about my experience as a captain of a Ragnar team last fall.  In short, it was a lot of work.  However, it was also a fantastic experience!  Our team, Haulin’ Mast, had a fantastic experience – even if we did have a few bumps along the path from Saratoga Springs to Lake Placid, NY.

When the team finished, we were EXHAUSTED.  Run, Eat, Sleep?, Repeat!  But, every single person said they wanted to run another Ragnar.  Every. Single. One.  It was great!  We had a blast working as a team to conquer the 200 mile relay – and dressing up as pirates and yelling ARRRGH for the entire 200 miles didn’t hurt much either.

So, we selected Ragnar Cape Cod as our next race.  That’s right, the team returns, or at least a few of us are repeating the experience, but this time we are going to debut at the Cape’d Crusaders – conquering the cape dressed as superheros!

Similar to the last race, we are running into a few bumps getting to the start line with injuries with runners, and a few other reasons (like work) getting in the way of a few of the teammates.  Well, actually this time it’s been even more difficult as we have had a turnover of over 1/3rd the original team, but the Cape’d Crusaders won’t let that stop ’em, we’ve recovered each time we’ve lost a teammate, found replacements, reshuffled running assignments and we continue to soar towards the start line on May 3rd!

Trying to coordinate 12 people, 2 vans, lodging, t-shirts, food, and festivities for this race can get a little crazy at times, but it’s totally worth it at the end of the day (and night).  You leave this race crazy tired, but with 10,000 memories and lots of laughs along the way.  It’s also great because there is no pressure for your race time or pace since the relay has a staggered start, the only goal is to get the team across the finish line!  Oh, plus you get a really cool medal that doubles as a bottle opener.  Who doesn’t love that?