ragnar relay florida keys 2011: leg 1

at the start of 2010, ragnar announced a new relay - miami to key west! in january! you can't pass that up. i chatted it up with a few blog buddies and luckily brian, was awesome enough to coordinate a team. i'm clearly too lazy for that; please just boss me around.

after months of planning (on brian's part) and anticipation (my part), i boarded a plane and headed south. i spent an exciting day in ft laud waiting to be picked up by my teammates. aka, i sat in the lobby of the holiday inn express.

i took pictures of random things to pass the time

all packed up

eventually i met up with part of the team and we prepared for the weekend ahead. a delicious spaghetti dinner, a few hours sleep, and we were up and on the road to the start line in miami.

dawn at crandon park beach

team captain brian, aka safety boy, started us off with a quick 3-mile leg. it was a legitimate concern that he would beat us to exchange 1 so we wished him luck and took off for the van. luckily we beat him and the next runner (daphne) even had a few minutes to prepare for her run. we passed her just as she was starting a climb up a bridge and honked/yelled/banged on the windows for her.

while waiting at the next exchange, i sent a photo of the view to my office mates who were stuck at work. daphne handed off to danna and we were on the road again. now i was feeling nervous as my turn grew closer. would i be able to run hard enough? would the nausea creep back in? would i get lost? would i be eaten by an alligator? at least i didn't have to worry about bathroom issues as i was able to take care of business before the race started.

i changed out of my $12 boston sweats and into running clothes. i wanted to run with my phone in case my leg got bitten off by an alligator, so i wore a sugoi fizz bra tank since it has a pocket on the back. one trip to the porta-potty for nerves ala redhead style and i waited for danna. she came cruising in, executed a smooth exchange, and i was off.

at a 6:46 mile pace.

yeah that's faster than my 5k pr, and i still have two more legs to run later. i slowed down and aimed for a 7:45 pace for the 4.2 mile leg. i jumped at a few palm fronds laying on the side of the road that looked like alligators. i passed a woman who had her headphones up too loud and didn't hear me coming. my shoe came untied. i didn't see any other (ragnar) runners during my leg. in the last mile i had to cross an intersection twice; it was hard to start back up after stopping.

i sped onward to the exchange where i awkwardly slapped the bracelet into hunter's hand instead of on her wrist. not the way to set a good impression upon people pretending to be my friends my new friends. we walked back to the van, i had a few minutes to stand around and cool-off, and then drove on to the next exchange.

i think this might be where we first started to daydream about pizza. already. at 10:30am.

hunter handed off to tim dan steve jim, our last runner in van 1. we drove to the first major exchange at gould's park, found the other half of our team, cheered jim in to hand-off to patrick of van 2, and went "off-duty".

a short run, cheering, and riding around in a van is exhausting work. we sped off to a luxurious lunch at ihop where they accidentally gave me nut-filled pancakes and i went into anaphylactic shock. just kidding, i didn't go into shock. luckily i noticed something funny about my blueberry pancakes and they whipped up a new, nut-free stack for me.

we stuffed ourselves full and went to the homestead miami speedway, the next major exchange, to rest up and prepare for our next "shift".

leg 1 (1/7) - 4.2 miles, 32:39 (avg pace 7:46), 54*
one roadkill; passed by no one.