Ragnar Las Vegas: Run a little, Laugh a lot, Sleep not at all

Tags

Las Vegas, Ragnar, RagnarVegas, Relay Running, running, Sewing, Van2

I wasn’t planning on writing about this experience, but after reading all of my other vanmate’s blog posts about Ragnar Vegas from last weekend I decided to add my experience to the list.  We all know how current I am about posting… Here goes:

For those who don’t know about Ragnar, it is a relay race made up of 12 runners who value sleep very little and fun a whole lot. There are two vans of six people and each person runs 3 legs of around 200 miles total. Usually you end up running between 13-20 miles. What they don’t tell you is how fast you will make friends with those other runners crammed in that van with you.

This is Van 2 prior to running any of our legs. See how clean we look?

From left to right: Jenny (my sisousin= sister-cousin), Brie (the other nurse), Me, Matt (Brave gentleman on team of 11 ladies!), Brennan (van artist extraordinaire), and Hyla (yogi and provided our driver Ron, who is the photog I believe)

Yes there were two nurses in our van and we didn’t even need any first aid.

I arrived in Las Vegas on Thursday, my sister Hannah is going to UNLV so I had a free place to stay and lox/bagels to eat. What. In Las Vegas? Yes and they were perfect.

Also her cat.

We all met at the Luxor on Friday and went to the first major exchange where Van 1 hands off to Van 2. Here’s where the fun starts.

Decorating. Probably one of the most important parts.

Brennan on art duty.

Keeping it tight.

Double down at Luxor, obviously.

Elvis made an appearance.

Thanks to our awesome sponsors, Nuun and ProCompression.

If you are curious about these sponsors, try their product:

Nuun is offering 20% of your order with code ragnarvegas until the end of the year. ProCompression is offering 40% off and free shipping with code nuunpc. Both are amazing. In fact, as silly as this is and because I’m going through Van 2 withdrawals, I am writing this while drinking cherry limeade nuun and wearing my compression socks to make myself feel better.

Our van name. Inappropriate? Maybe. Accurate? Yes. Down to the Richard Nixons.

Don’t worry we quadrupled out kills by the end of our race.

Yes, it was hot in that van when you least expected. Yes, I only got one full hour of sleep between Friday at 12p and Saturday at 8p. However, I have never had so much fun with strangers. Without boring you too much with the silly jokes, Applebee’s stories, exploded port-a-potties, nuun OD’s, and hashtags, suffice it to say that I count all of these people as my friends and would go run another relay with each and every one of them tomorrow. Please, can we run it again?!

The full team.

We finished in 60th(!) place out of 250 mixed teams and ran for 27 hours and 57 minutes. I know a lot of us PR’d on some of these miles. Must be the tightness of our socks and the hydration of our drinks…

Amazing post race beer, Sierra Nevada IPA. Mostly because it kept me from becoming crabby Sara for a while.

I am going to repeat what many of my vanmates have said, but I wish I could have gotten to know all of the ladies in Van 1 a little better. I am so glad I got to spend some time with them after the race.

Guess I’ll have to read/stalk all of their blogs:

Nicole, Kelsey, Sandy, Caroline, Zoe, and Vanessa.

And of course, Megan, who put this thing together.

Thank you all so much for showing me how to have the best time on my first relay run ever!

My leg recaps:

1st leg: 2.77 miles in 26:44s, 9:40 min/mi

2nd leg: 7.34 miles in 1:05.34s, 8:57 min/mi

3rd leg: 6.68 miles in 58:33s, 8:49 min/mi, 2 bighorns (wish I had my camera with me)

Yay for downhill!

Necessary handoff montage:

Brennan checking in with Brie

Deciding how necessary the Sparkle skirt is.

Brie handing off to Jenny

Jenny handing off to Brennan.

Brie and Hyla staying warm at an early am exchange.

Matt helping Brennan with her reflector. Also of note, last time we had to wear our night gear!

You can stop reading now if you don’t want to hear about the rest of the sister trip/the making of the sparkle skirt…

On Sunday, we went to the Titanic Exhibit at Luxor. The exhibit was pretty well done. If you are in Vegas you should check it out. I don’t have pictures of this, why you ask? Stay tuned, we are working on it. Let’s just say it has to do with a certain famous staircase and a certain ghostly captain.

Then we went to Fremont Street, which was so much fun. It’s my new favorite place to go in Vegas. I may only stay there from now on.

Psychedelic Cats. On the ceiling. And that’s Bumblebee just to the bottom right. More on that later.

So pretty. The environment was a little less hectic down there. And the casinos had more character.

Laugh with me at these slot machine themes for a moment. Disclaimer: I may have played all of these, the sucker that I am.

Yes please, I would like to bet 5 cupcakes on this spin…

Hannah, loving the puppy stampede. Puppies actually run across the screen when you win! These slot machine designers have my number.

Then, this display was spotted in the toy store. I found all of Bumblebee’s friends. So many Transformers. My husband informed me that he still has the Optimus Prime in the center. He’s such a big kid.

This was the best part. Pinball Hall of Fame.

A real, magical place filled with so many pinball machines. And hours of fun.

The only picture we took with all three of us.

Goodbye Vegas!

Last, but not least, I made some sparkle show girl skirts for the race. I wore it for my 2 am 7 mile run when I needed a little extra something for motivation. Here’s the tutorial I used.

Thanks for sticking with me to the end. This was such an amazing trip filled with amazing people who I have so much love for!

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I am going shopping at Oiselle online. Thanks a lot for introducing it to me guys…