Ragnar Northwest Passage ULTRA Style

I could write an entire book about this relay and at the same time I could sum it all up in just a few sentences.

Before it all began!

Here's the short version:
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.  Yes, it was the WORST of times.

Here's the long version:
Without completely and utterly embarrassing myself (too late for that?), let's just say I suffered incredible intestinal distress such that I've never experienced while racing before.  I've been a complete arrogant snob - my gut has always been a "rock", and that was something that happened to other racers.  Well let's just say, I will never ever again relay without carrying Imodium.  That stuff is magic.

My happiest moment: before the running and distress began!

While this was my 3rd Ragnar and 6th relay (well, 7th if you count Mt. Si but that's not the same), I've never done one ultra style before (ran with 6 runners instead of 12).  And, I'm not sure I will again.  Let me be clear, I am incredibly proud of myself for finishing and for accomplishing this.  I'm so glad I did it and I'm happy to cross it off my bucket list.  But let me also be clear, this was probably the hardest race I've ever completed.  It was hard physically (oh the hills, the hills, hills, hills, everywhere) and it was sure hard mentally, and didn't I already mention I thought I was actually dying during it?  Like Robyn sneezed and I couldn't muster the energy to tell her 'Bless You' even though I wanted to.  That's how bad it was.  Like I was googling hotels in the area and Marilyn said 'Maybe her husband should come pick her up'.  THAT'S how bad it was.  So maybe you weren't clear about that.

But here's the lowdown of the race itself.  I got to hang out with 5 amazing ladies and one truly amazing driver (Marilyn's husband is AWESOME).  I loved each of these ladies and I'm so glad I got to know them more.

In order of legs, Robyn, Lauren, Marilyn, moi, Jordanne, Bethany.

These women are hard core, never give up, funny, kind, inspirational, generous... they are the kind of ladies one would be lucky to call friends.  I'm so lucky I got to annoy them for 48 hours!

 Reppin' Nuun!

We decided to divvy up the miles in a more "interesting" way than the typical 3 vs 6 leg conundrum, to avoid one person being stuck with an 18 mile middle-of-the-night leg, so we split them unconventionally across 4 legs for each person.  Sometimes we ran 1 leg at a time, sometimes 2, and lucky me once got to run 3 legs at a time.  So here they were:

1st Leg: Legs 7 & 8
9.67 miles  10:38 average  1:42:58   elevation gain: 807 feet (yes you read that right)
Friday, 2:48pm
Splits: 9:41, 9:15, 9:39, 10:06, 9:42, 12:07, 13:25, 12:14, 10:07, 9:49

They said this was the hardest leg of the entire course.  Too bad I didn't realize I had to climb a mountain until the week before.  It was DIFFICULT to say the least.  Steep and unrelenting and HOT in the middle of the afternoon.  It was pretty though - on gravel trails through forests and along a lake. 

A few miles is was when I started to worry about how my stomach was feeling.  Another mile or two and I was panicked and looking off into the bushes.  Luckily there was a bathroom at this lake park in the middle, I don't even want to think about what would have happened if that oasis hadn't magically appeared.  I majorly struggled through the rest of the leg.  The mile splits tell the story. 

I've never been so happy to hand off that bracelet!

Then I proceeded to die in the car for a few hours.  Like seriously, it was terrible and not pretty.  We saw Lindsay and the Nuun team at the exchange and I couldn't even go hang out with them, that's how bad it was.  Until Robyn had the genius idea to ask the first aid tent at the major exchange for Imodium.  And man that worked IMMEDIATELY!  Seriously, it was magic.  You could tell I felt better when I finally laughed (once! ha) and took a few tiny bites of my sandwich.  I wasn't 100% but it was 10,000% better than it was before. 

2nd Leg: Leg 18
5.55 miles  9:58 average  55:23  elevation gain: 26 feet (yes you read that right!)
Saturday, 12:13am
Splits: 9:45, 9:41, 9:58, 10:02, 10:10, 10:19

 

I felt much better during this leg and didn't need a bathroom.  Win!  Also it was cooler and flat as a pancake, so that certainly helped.  This was the closest to running on a treadmill as I would EVER thought was possible.  Who even knew such a flat road even existed?!

3rd Leg: Legs 25, 26, & 27
8.68 miles  12:09 average  1:45:36   elevation gain: 597 feet
Saturday, 7:38am
Splits: 10:25, 12:33, 10:42, 12:44, 12:35, 12:09, 12:57, 13:05, 12:18

Here's where I made a mistake of not preempting the bathroom issues by taking another Imodium.  Man I wish I had, because the intestinal issues were back, as were the relentless and difficult hills.  I was really hoping my team would come by so I could get that magic pill from them but they were off at Starbucks.  Luckily I ran through not one but two exchanges and I used the port-a-potties at each.  Once again, those splits tell the story.  It makes me cringe just looking at them. 

 

My nice teammates were making fun of my outfit.

4th Leg: Leg #34
5.69 miles  9:38 average  54:54   elevation gain: 476 feet
Saturday, 2:54pm
Splits: 11:05, 9:02, 10:06, 8:25, 9:51, 9:12

And NOW the going gets good!  I was just about writing off relays FOREVER.  I was begging others to take that leg.  Thank goodness Robyn and Bethany and everyone else told me to SUCK IT UP LADY and stop being a baby and just finish this thing, because this was easily the best hour of the whole entire race.  Again, look at the splits!  This was still a hilly leg - and yet there's an 8:25 in there and a bunch of 9's!  I felt amazing, I felt like me, THIS is the Ricole that comes to relays, not that girl I didn't even recognize from before.  Who was that?!?!

This was exactly my favorite kind of run - on rolling hills (hills are okay as long as you actually get to run down them!) through beautiful countryside with animals (I saw a deer and her baby!) on backcountry quiet roads on a coastal island.  Seriously, does it get any better than this?  And I was truckin'.  I still powerwalked the huge hills but now I FLEW down the downhills.  I picked out people to pass like "come here little one" and passed 8 people one-by-one.  THIS WAS ME.  It was a wonderful way to end the relay after such horribleness. 

Isn't running wonderful?!?!  I yelled this to my teammates during this run and they all thought I was being majorly sarcastic after all of my complaints but I wasn't!

In all it was 29.6 miles of running, 1,906 feet of elevation gain (YES YOU READ THAT RIGHT), and 5 hours and 19 minutes of running.  WHEW! 

I was too grouchy to cross off any of my legs until after I finally had a good one.  

All done!  32 hours and 17 minutes later... and cheersing with some pizza, and later with some DQ.

THANK YOU AWESOME TEAMMATES & DRIVER!

And thanks in advance to my husband for not holding all of my sad sick texts against me the next time I want to relay...

And that's a wrap!  Let's hope Hood to Coast is a little more friendly...

Hippie Chick Half Marathon Race Recap

On Saturday I ran the Better Series Hippie Chick Half Marathon as a Nuun ambassador (Nuun is working with the Better Series for their hydration!).  Thank you to both of them for the opportunity!  I haven't run more than 3 miles since the Seahawks 12k a month ago, and I've been in a bit of a running funk as you might recall, so running this race was probably not one of my better ideas!

Ready or not?

But, you start with the quarter marathon (how many races have you ever seen are actually quarter marathons instead of 10ks?!?!?  Very cool), so I figured if I felt terrible I could do the quarter race instead.  

I got there and got my packet without many problems.  It was a WAY bigger race than I anticipated!  The traffic line up into the parking area was really long and I was worried for awhile I would be late, but I ended up at the start time with an easy 20 minutes to spare, no problems.  It was very well organized at the start with the packet pick-up and such.  It all took place in a big stadium so there was tons of space and *gasp* real live bathrooms!  That's a major major plus. 

And then we were off!  I felt fine, so I kept going when the quarter marathoners turned off from us around mile 2.5 - it's so early to make such a big decision!  And sure enough, at mile 3, I thought I'd made a HUGE mistake!  There was still SO FAR to go!  Oh man. 

 

The course is GORGEOUS though.  I mean, if you like beautiful meadows and forests and seas of red flowers.  If you're into that kind of thing.  I say the more cows and horses, the better.

 

 

So I had zero plans going into it, but after seeing my split at mile 2, I decided my goal would be to aim to hang on to sub 2 pace (my goal for the year is to get under sub 2 again) for the first half (through mile 6.6) and then I could walk as much as I wanted to the rest of the race.  

Well, I made it to 6.6, so then I was like just make it to 7, then just make it to 8, then 9, then 10, and then... running 3 more felt IMPOSSIBLE.  It's funny how your brain works.  At mile 10 running 3 more felt like climbing Mt. Everest, so I walk a bunch, but at mile 11 I'm like, oh, just 2 more miles, I can do that easy! And then I start busting out  my fastest miles yet.  I'm a weirdo.  

So basically, spoiler alert, I threw it away at mile 11.  IDIOT!  It would have been close either way, it would have been super tight if I would have even made it without walking any, but I did manage to hit 13.11 (on my watch) at 1:59:21.  It's crazy folks!  How did I do that?!?!  

 

 

Splits: 9:04, 9:03, 8:54, 9:07, 9:02, 9:09, 9:00, 9:00, 9:03, 9:12, 10:10, 8:43, 8:58, 8:07 (.26)

SO consistent!  Well, except for when I threw it away - can you spot that?!

 

This was just the motivation I need to get my butt into gear.  I want to train!  Think of what I could have done if I had trained for this race?!?!  (The lesson here might be that I do better when I don't train than when I do?!)  I definitely want to keep working and train for the next one.  I want to train for that triathlon!  I don't want to just hope to finish!  I want to race!  Now let's see if I can get this plan into action.

Now let's talk about the race.  Folks, this is THE race to do if you want to PR.  It is FLAT AS A PANCAKE. 

 

Speaking of pancakes, they give you a free pancake breakfast after the race!  Speaking of breakfast, they also give you a free beer!  Speaking of beer.... they also give you a ton of free chocolate!  I don't know how that relates but it does.  :-)  You also get a necklace instead of a medal, and I'm pretty sure all participants got the necklace, not just the half marathoners.

Here's the caveat though - if you want to PR, I think you should carry your own water. I thought the race was fantastically run in every area EXCEPT the hydration.  There were only three water stops during this race - at miles 4, 6, and 10.5.   I know I am high maintenance in that I prefer more stops than most (I think 6 is ideal!), but even keeping that in mind I think 3 is a bit low.  I also only got Nuun at mile 10.5 - no electrolytes anywhere else that I could see (maybe they were refilling?).  

I think there was supposed to be one more water station:

 

It was unmanned the whole race.  I saw person after person try and fill their own cup from the jugs but it was sad and empty!  :-(  So there must have been some sort of mix-up.  By mile 10 or so it had been 4 miles since the last water, the sun was beating down on us, and I was seriously thirsty.  I'm not going to blame my dark times then on this, since I'm SURE it's *mostly* not training (ha!) but I did feel 100 times better after I finally got that glorious Nuun at mile 10.5! 

Other than that though, it was a lovely race and a lovely time had by all!  I will be back next year!  I love local races that don't involve 10,000 people and parking fiascos.  It was fun to do an all women's race and feel that energy.  It was a great way to kick off my first Mother's Day!

 Awwww.

Seahawks 12k Race Report... Finally!

1)  ECHO - You won my Hippie Chick Half Marathon giveaway!  I still haven't heard from you!  If I don't hear from you by Wednesday I'll pick a new winner.  Email me at ricoleruns@gmail.com.

2)  I finally got to try Nuun's new Energy product! #getelectrolit  It's awesome.  It's the same old Nuun you know and love all hopped up on caffeine and b vitamins.  What's not to like?  Go buy your own here.

3)  Last weekend Baby J "ran" (er, rode?) his very first race! 

It was the Seahawks 12k - my 3rd year of doing the race and JMan and Baby J's first.  Unfortunately, I remembered how NOT busy it was the past two years, not incorporating the "we just won the Super Bowl phenomenon", and I would not have recommended that this be our first race as a family with the stroller had I known how congested it was. 

JMan was a trooper and pushed the stroller the entire way, but it was a bit disappointing to be forced to a near walk at times because of the congestion.  It was kind of like an interval workout - we would go as fast as we could if we could, and then pretty much have to walk once we ran into another wall of people.

 See?  Wall of people.

Baby J LOVES to ride in the stroller - he has never one time minded and he has pretty much never one time not taken a nap (when it was nap time), and he has definitely ridden in the stroller for this length of time before.

See?  He loves it!

Until today.  Apparently all the millions of people and all the excitement got him all revved up and too excited to nap.  But not napping does not make for a happy baby.  So he was NOT pleased after a while.  It was kind of embarrassing, like we were these awful parents forcing our baby to join us on this race.  I SWEAR HE LOVES THIS PEOPLE!  At one point, we even stopped and walked and I carried him.  SERIOUSLY.  Talk about putting a dent in our momentum!

The race is cool in that you get to run around the Seahawks' training facility and some Seahawks (likely 3rd stringers since no one recognized them) gave us water! 

Finally we gave up on making Baby J happy and decided to just try to run as fast as we possibly could to the finish so he could get out and be happy.  Get this... Baby J fell asleep literally the SECOND we crossed the finish line.  I AM NOT JOKING PEOPLE!  Seriously.  RIDICULOUS CRAZY BABY!  :-) 

Anyway, so Baby J's first race wasn't such a success.  It was great to be out there as a family and a seriously wonderful day (see that blue sky?!) and fun to be out there with friends though. 

Total Distance: 7.71 miles      Total Time: 1:17:55        Average Pace: 10:06
Splits: 9:55, 9:27, 10:27, 10:00, 10:32, 9:49, 12:15, 7:43

Can you see where we walked carrying Baby and where we sprinted back?! 

Tacoma St. Patty's Day Half Marathon Race Report

Last Sunday I ran the Tacoma St. Patty's Day Half Marathon.  And if I don't write about it soon, it will be like it never happened at all!  Right?!?!

But there's not much to say about it.  I didn't train much.  It's ridiculous, because it wouldn't have taken much to train.  I had just done the Hot Chocolate 15k two weeks prior, so a few medium runs and one long run and I would have been good to go!  But oh no, no way would I do something so easy!  Instead I decided to run not ONCE in between the two races.  I'm so smart.

Baby J had a few rough nights at the beginning and somehow I was just sooooo tired and so lazy and then the weather was bad and.... excuses much?

Anyway, since Becky wasn't doing it any longer, if Lisa hadn't been doing it I probably would have bailed! Luckily for me, these races are a DREAM logistically.  Nice and close, free parking a few blocks from the start, Starbucks open with clean bathrooms with short waits, etc.  I only want to do races like this from now on.  Bye bye downtown Seattle events.

It was so good to see Lisa and spend the first 4 miles with her!  Neither of us were exactly ecstatic about the idea of running 13.1 miles, but poor Lisa was really hurting, and after 4 miles of run/walking, she decided to walk back to the start (the first section is a loop so we weren't that far away).

 Most of the race is a big out and back along the Tacoma waterfront Ruston area - very lovely views, although the drizzly cloudiness kind of hindered the loveliness. 

Lucky for me, although Becky couldn't run the whole race as originally planned because of her knee, she agreed to run 5ish miles with me in the middle of the race!  So after leaving Lisa at mile 4, I only had one mile alone before finding Becky at mile 5.  And apparently the one mile alone was my fastest of the whole race (8:55).

The lesson here is, maybe I should train next time.

Thanks to the out and back on the water, most of the race is lovely flatness.  But the elevation gain is actually a surprising 423 feet thanks to some large hills in the middle at the turnaround and a very nasty mean uphill to the finish.

Becky was not impressed with my attitude during the race, but somehow I still convinced her to keep running to the finish with me instead of stopping at 10.  Thanks Becky!

Final thoughts on the race:  Great logistics, love the free pizza at the end, adorable glittery medal.  But not having a water stop until mile 4?!  That's unacceptable in my book.  Not enough water overall.

But that's a wrap!  I need to find my running mojo again.  I really really want to train for a race, like REALLY train, and show what I can do.  I want a sub 2 (at least) this year.  I want to run a marathon.  I want a PR in SOMETHING.  I want to do a triathlon.  But I want all these things, but then I find it so hard to actually put in the work when push comes to shove.

Any motivation advice?

What would a post be without a picture of Baby J's bad hair day?!

Seattle Hot Chocolate 15k Race Report: HILLS, HILLS, HILLS!

This morning I ran the Seattle Hot Chocolate 15k.  Thank you thank you THANK YOU to Andrea for being an AMAZING Hot Chocolate Ambassador, hosting a race entry giveaway on her blog, and then picking me to win!  I'm so grateful and thankful.  I'm so glad I got to do this race and I'm sure I wouldn't have if I hadn't won an entry!

The weekend started off on Friday GORGEOUS with freaking 60 degree sunny days.  You can bet Baby J got out in the sun to enjoy it!

He loves to swing!

But by Saturday the weather had taken a complete 180.  But we still made the best of it by accidentally joining the March Forth 5k around Greenlake (Baby J's first race?!) and then a lovely (but sad!) going away party for Robyn at Patty's Egg Nest. 

 Baby J had a lovely time.  Lindsay is a good sport!

Don't leave us Robyn!

Lindsay, Andrea, Becky, Meghan, Lauren, Robyn, and I.

And by Sunday morning the forecast was downright terrifying:

38 degrees (with winds up to 10 mph making the feels like temperature closer to 30), 90% chance of precipitation, and this precipitation being rain and snow?!  EEK!  Considering the longest I've run in any recent history is 5 miles, I knew today's 9.3 wasn't going to feel grand.  So coupled with the weather forecast and I was kind of dreading the race.  But, since I'm also running a freaking half marathon in just two weeks, I knew that running this distance was also required. 

Luckily the weather (for the race... dom dom DOM - more on this later) was amazing.  It drizzled at most, and although the entire first mile I couldn't stop shouting I'M FREEZING I'M FREEZING with the wind and the ice rain droplets, after that the weather was pretty much perfect.  I even took my jacket off pretty quickly - in mile 3 or so.  AND since I had put the race bib over the front of the zipper, that sure made it annoying to remove.

Lessons I never seem to learn no matter how many times I learn them: 1) I ALWAYS overdress.  I need to get dressed, and then remove one layer on top before I run.  ALWAYS.  2) The bib goes on the BOTTOM!  That or I need to get a bib belt.  I never think I'll take my top layer off and then I always do and then the bib is gone.  This time it was especially bad since there was a full zipper involved.  3) ALWAYS bring a ziploc bag for your phone, even when you plan to carry it zipped into said jacket's pocket (that even though you swear you won't take off you do).

 The start

We got there bright and early, parked without much trouble, got in a corral, and off we went!  I was kind of poo-pooing the out-and-back set-up before we started the race, but it was actually kind of nice, especially because I did absolutely zero researching about this race's elevation, aid stations, port-a-potty's, etc.  After about two miles easy with Jordanne, I felt like this was a good opportunity for a test of my current fitness, and I decided to go pretty medium-hard effort wise for the rest of the time, until the last 2 miles or so when I went all out hard effort.  And I felt great!  I mean, I wanted to be done at 7 miles, but I really loved how most of the uphill was in the first half of the race, saving the lovely downhill for the second half.  It was pretty darn evil to have the last half mile be uphill though!

And that's the one word description of this race - HILLS!  I swear you were either climbing them or going down them, there was practically no flat parts.  Which I actually kind of liked, though I bet I will feel them tomorrow. 

 Can YOU spot a flat part?!?!  Total elevation gain 679 feet.

And then I was done!  And I was immediately FREEZING.  Like FREEZING FREEZING.  Like I've never been so cold before.  And we had an hour to wait or so and it was just miserable.  I also wasn't feeling very well, like so often happens to me after a hard effort in a race.  I didn't even eat any of the chocolate treats they gave us (the hot chocolate would have been wonderful to make me warmer if it hadn't been sooooo chocolatey.  Way too rich for my taste, or at least for after a race!).  I wasn't really a fan of the fondue either. 

Total Time: 1:24:47  (Average Pace: 9:06)
Splits: 10:03, 9:41, 8:57, 9:21, 9:00, 9:43, 8:46, 8:44, 8:32, 8:40
Can you spot the hills?!

This is getting long!  Final thoughts: I have never been more proud of myself for not walking once (NOT ONCE!) during all of those huge hills.  I'm seriously so proud.  I'm also impressed with my fitness.  I mean, I had a good day, there's no doubt in that.  I felt good and I gave a good effort and this time was much more than I hoped for.  But it does give me hope that maybe I'll be fast again someday?  I hope???

WAY TO GO TEAM!

My Slowest Half Yet

The Seattle Half Marathon was Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend.  Sorry I'm so behind folks.  Baby J is going to be a year old before I get his 5 month update up too.

If you've been following along, you might know that I have completely fallen off the running bandwagon since Ragnar.  It's sad because I was truckin' along quite nicely with my eyes set on a sub 2 half marathon at this race and then somehow all of the motivation was gone.  The dark, cold, and fatigue have gotten to me.

So needless to say, I was actually kind of dreading Sunday.  The forecast was for 100% chance of rain, 20-25 mph winds, I had to set my alarm at 4:50 freaking a.m., and I knew it was going to HURT.  It just did not sound like a fun time, and I honestly thought about bailing and staying cozy and warm at home instead.

If these peeps weren't going to be there I DEFINITELY would have stayed home!

Go Seahawks!

But then the alarm went off (actually, I was already up at 4:00am feeding Baby J) and I really wasn't that tired, and it wasn't raining at that moment (and it never did rain!) and I actually felt pretty good during the race, considering!  It's funny how I felt so incredibly terrible-death-marchy at the Salty Half even though I was trained yet I felt waaaayy better today even though I hadn't run in 3 weeks and hadn't run more than 7 miles in 6 whopping weeks.  You really never know who is going to show up on race day. 

Anyway, there's not a lot to say about the race.  It was great to catch up with Lindsay and Jordanne - we ran together the entire way (well, until the last mile when Lindsay wanted to show off her downhill running skills), it never rained once despite the forecast, the wind wasn't even too terrible except for during the first 2-3 miles, it's much more fun to do races with friends than to run alone, and that's about it?

We were definitely treating this race in a LEISURELY fashion - oh you want to walk to test your blood sugar?  We'd LOVE to do that!  Oh you want to walk this hill?  YEP.  Oh should we stop and go to the bathroom?  DEFINITELY!  But when we hit the 13 mile marker my watch showed we had exactly 1 minute to get in under 2:20.  While I knew already this was going to be my slowest half yet I thought maybe we could try to keep it under 2:20?   So I convinced Jordanne to run as fast as we could to the finish, but when I stopped my Garmin I saw 2:20:01!  WHAT?!  It must have been longer than .1.   Jordanne had 2:19:59 so I'm going with her time...

Jordanne, Lindsay, Lauren, Becky, Meghan

Total time: 2:20:01    Average Pace: 10:41
Total elevation gain: 807 feet

Splits: 10:13, 9:52, 10:02, 14:31 (this is when we were in the tunnel and when the distance got behind), 9:26, 11:04, 9:49, 12:40 (this was not in a tunnel and is accurate!), 10:40, 11:28, 9:48, 10:06, 11:39

And just because I might want to remember what the elevation map looked like for next time:

And that's it!  Sorry folks, there's not much to say this time.  Half marathon #16 (? I think) is in the books.