This past weekend I had the pleasure of running the Ragnar West Virginia relay race. If you’ve never heard of Ragnar Relay races definitely check out their website. They offer a variety of road and trail relay races. The concept is each person on your team gets 3 legs to run and you run through the night to complete the race. For the trail relay you camp out at whatever camp site the race is at, for West Virginia its Big Bear Lake.
I ran this race last year, and had well we’ll say an interesting experience. I’ll chalk it up to inexperience in trail running and camping. This year was completely different, we still had a lot of rain and mud but I had a lot of fun! My friend and I were suppose to head up Thursday night but after a crazy work week and looking at the forecast we decided to head up early Friday morning. Turns out they got some crazy storms Thursday night so it was probably a good thing we didn’t head up then, we got settled in to camp and then headed to the village to try and check out some trail shoes but had no luck.
Because of the storms and the pending storms, Ragnar pushed everyone’s start time up an hour so we ended up starting at 11. We headed back up to the start to watch our first runner go out, luckily it start raining again until she was already in the woods. Once we got started it seemed like no time before I was up. I was 3rd runner again this year so I had red loop up first. I really liked being 3rd runner because you do the runs in order of hardest to easiest and you aren’t running too late at night. Because of all the rain everything was really green, and really muddy.
Once red loop was done, I hung out with the rest of the group at camp before trying to sneak in a nap to prepare for my next run. Unfortunately it started raining pretty heavily after I had laid down so I didn’t get to much rest. After hanging around camp for a little a couple of us went to grab some of the free pasta dinner Ragnar provided and then headed back to camp to regroup before our next round of runs. Unfortunately during this time one of our teammates got injured on her run and had to be taken to urgent care for some stitches. Our team captain who was our last runner had to take her there and we were going to skip his run but one of our team mates soldiered up and ran her run and his run back to back. And then, before I knew it I was waiting for our number 2 runner to head out for his second run.
Right as evening was approaching the skies started to clear so our second runner got to run during the sun setting. My next run started around 945PM and I was doing the yellow loop. Last year before I ran this loop I called Jason bawling my eyes out cause I was so freaked out. This year I’m not sure if its because I had done it before or what but I breezed right through it. I did think I was lost at some points because the trail wasn’t clearly marked. I’m not sure if people trying to avoid the mud had knocked over some signs but there were a couple times I had to stop and look around for the next sign, and when I couldn’t find one, follow the mud slick from the other runners. After my second run, I had a good break until my last run so I was able to sleep for about 5 hours which felt glorious. I was up early enough to see the sun rise, and after not seeing the sun for most of the day Friday it was nice to see some pretty weather, even if it didn’t last long.
Once I got up and figured out where we were in the line up I got myself ready for my last run. As we were waiting for our number 1 runner to get back Ragnar announced they were going to have teams that were at risk of not finishing before 6PM double or triple up. I’m not sure why we were forced to double up but it meant us getting out a little earlier so I didn’t complain. It also ended up working out for us because we didn’t have to make up any of our injured teammates run. As the other runners in our group were completing their last runs, we began to break down camp so we could leave soon after our last runner came in. Once the last runners were out we headed over to the finish line to wait for them.
Like I said… it was a little muddy. Once our guys came across the finish we celebrated with a couple beers and got our medals. These are seriously some of the coolest medals I’ve ever received from a race, they are actually a multipurpose tool.
I know it sounds crazy but I cannot wait until next year’s race. I think we are planning on doing the Richmond race for a change of scenery and (hopefully) weather and I’m definitely looking forward to the road relay!
One Fit Angler 