Ragnar Las Vegas: 11/8/13-11/9/13

This past weekend I ran Ragnar Las Vegas with some pretty amazing people. Our team was sponsored by Nuun and Pro Compression and I owe them a huge thank you for everything! THANK YOU!!!

 

Our team consisted of 11 women and 1 dude in a sparkly skirt!

Me, Hyla, Zoe, Vanessa, Nicole, Caroline, Kelsey, Jenny, Sara, Matt, Brianne and Brennan

I was in Van #1: Me, Caroline, Zoe, Kelsey, Vanessa and Nicole. I could not have asked for a better group of girls to spend 24 plus hours in a van with! I loved all of the them!

Our teammates in Van #2:  Sara, Brianne, Jenny, Matt, Brennan and Hyla. I stole this picture from Hyla's blog.

I wish we could have spent more time with Van #2 but both vans are kind of on opposite schedules during a relay. While one van is running their hearts out, the other van is pretty much recovering, eating and sleeping.  We were able to meet up with a few of them the night before the relay started so I am glad that I was able to meet and get to know a few of them.

Caroline and I caught a plane to Las Vegas on Thursday night and we spent the night in this pyramid with Kelsey and Vanessa! I think I drove Caroline nuts with my snoring but she was just too nice to tell me. I think Kelsey may have won the snoring contest though!

Source

The Luxor sky beam was visible from every place we drove that van on the relay course. It was pretty amazing!

Our fearless leader, Zoe, picked us up from our hotel at 9:30 am on Friday morning. The van was packed with lots of snacks, water, and Nuun of course. Thank you Zoe! We headed to the Start to pick up our bibs, attend the safety training, and decorated our van while we waited for our start time.

The 187 mile relay starts at Mt. Charleston, Nevada at an 8600 elevation level and ends in Henderson, Nevada at Lake Las Vegas. There was snow on the ground when we arrived at the Start but for some reason I wasn't even cold. As you can see, I am the only one in the picture without a jacket.

Our team started at 12:30pm and we thought we were going to be the last ones to finish since we started so late and the course and the exchanges seemed kind of empty when we were present.

Our team was just a very fun and energetic group to be around! They were so positive and encouraging to our team mates and to the other runners out there on the course. They really gave me a burst of energy and the motivation to get out there and run my best! 

I was Runner 3 and a ran a total of 11.47 miles. Here is a little break down on each of my legs: 

Leg 3: My first leg was my favorite and it started about 2:15 pm on Friday afternoon. It was all downhill on SR-195. It was so super quiet that it felt weird but it was peaceful. Our van drove by cheering me on and I knew they were coming when ever I heard that cowbell! I felt so free running on that open road. I was the only runner out there on the road until Mile 4 when I chicked a dude but gave him a high five and encouraged him to stay with it! It was my only leg without traffic signals and it was pretty amazing. It was so amazing that I may have ran my fastest 5.5 miles ever.

Leg 3 Stats: Distance: 5.5 Miles, Avg. Pace 7:18 and Kills=2

Leg 15: My second leg was my night run and it started about 10:20 pm on Friday night. I always get nervous on my night run because I am so afraid of getting lost. I hit one really long traffic signal on this leg. The Ragnar staff made me wait for the signal so I was not able to run through it even though there were no cars coming (BOO!). I did not stop my Garmin at the signals so my average pace includes the stops. All of the turns were clearly marked so I was happy that I did not get lost.

Leg 15 Stats: Distance: 2.13 Miles, Avg. Pace 8:34 and Kills:3

Leg 27: My last leg started at 7:40 am on Saturday morning in 48 degree temps. It was perfect weather and I was ready to be done since I had not slept very much. My quads were a little sore so I was planning on taking my last leg easy if my quads were not going to allow me to run pain free. This leg was supposed to be an even 4 miles but ended up being a little short due to a slight change to the course. I caught so many long traffic signals but the good thing is that my quads were not hurting while I was running and I was able to finish strong. My average pace was around 7:30-7:40 while I was in motion.

Leg 27 Stats: Distance: 3.84 Miles, Avg. Pace 8:42 and Kills=5

It felt great to be finished but I just didn't want it to be over. I was still on a runner's high from all of the positive vibes from the ladies in Van #1 so we agreed that we would do it again sometime in the near future.

Once Van #1 was finished, we drove straight to the Finish Line to wait for Van#2 to finish things up. 

We walked around the finish area and ate some pizza and visited Megan at the Nuun booth. Zoe and I picked up our extra medals for running Ragnar Las Vegas and one other Ragnar race in 2013. I ran Ragnar So Cal in April, 2013 so this was an added bonus for me!

Results: Team Nuun/Pro Compression did great! We finished 60th out of 339 team in the Mixed Open Division.

I have one more thing to share with you before I end this post:NUUN and PRO COMPRESSION have so generously offered some great discounts for you:
 
NUUN

Code: ragnarvegas
Good for: 20% order
Expires: 12/31/13 

PRO COMPRESSION

Code: nuunpc
Good for: 40% off + free shipping
Expires: 12/31/13