On January 5 and 6, 13 of my friends and I climbed into two 12-passenger vans and ran from Miami to Key West. This race is part of the Ragnar Relay Series.
Here’s how it works: Teams of 12 people are split up into two vans – van 1 and van 2. The 13th and 14th people are the van drivers. It’s not required to have a separate driver, but it’s nice to not have to worry about running and driving all hours of the night.
Each runner has three distances (legs) to complete. Total distances ranged from 10 miles to 22 miles. My first leg was 3 miles, my second was 8.2 and my final leg was 3 miles. Runners 1-6 are in van 1 and runners 7-12 are in van 2. After each leg, runners hand off a slap bracelet to the next runner.
There are 5 big “exchanges” where the last runner from the previous van hands of the bracelet to the first runner in the next van. The van waiting to get the bracelet can spend a few hours at the exchange eating, showering or trying to catch some sleep.
How it went for my team:
Teams start times are based on the average pace of the team. Like any other race, the officials want participants to finish in a timely manner. For this reason team start times vary from 5 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the first race day. Most of the people on my team do a race similar to the one we did in Florida and the team starts at 8 a.m. We started at 11 a.m.
My team captain made a nice spreadsheet of our predicted start times, but once we actually started the race, that was out the window. None of us bothered to train too much because of the holidays and there is a huge difference between Chicago weather and South Florida weather. After van 1 completed their first leg, we were about an hour behind. I don’t think anyone in my van noticed as we were busy cheering each other on and running in the warmest part of the day. At the second big exchange when van 1 started running its second leg, even our team captain was behind his own estimate.
My second leg was the most terrifying. I ran 8.2 miles through the Everglades at 11:00 at night. The note in our Race Bible about this leg was “Do not drop food as it may attract unwanted wildlife.” Oh, good, I was going to get eaten by an alligator. I had not run more than 5 miles since my half marathon in November, but I was confident in my ability to tackle this distance. Besides the threat of being eaten by an alligator, the worst part of this leg was the fact that I was running on a rocky surface. I had to change my gait and was never able to run like I normally do because of the surface. I ended up being about 8 minutes off my estimated time because of these conditions.
My van finished our second leg at close to 6 a.m. Saturday. We were smelly, exhausted and hungry. Luckily our driver spotted a little diner that had just opened for the day. It was cheap, and the food was good. (If you’re ever in Islamadora, FL do yourself a favor and stop by Bob’s Bunz.)
After we ate we made our way to the 2nd to last big exchange in anticipation for our last leg. I had been riding shot gun the whole time and at this stop I was finally able to lay out in one of the back seats and get an hour of sleep.
At this point we were heading into a bit of a time crunch. We had not made up the hour of time we lost at the beginning of the race and were even more off pace than anticipated. Everyone in van 1 realized that there was no way we were going to be able to return the vans at the time we said we were going to and now we were hearing rumblings that van 2 wanted to skip out on their last leg so they could make the end-of-race party.
After we made the exchange for van 1 to start its last leg, the captain called our van and asked if we wanted to run our legs concurrently so we could make the end of race party. We were all against it. As someone who was doing this race for the first time, I wanted the experience of the whole team completing the race as intended.We fell even further behind when the runner 2 in my van had some trouble completing her 9 mile leg that included the Seven Mile Bridge.
During this leg, runners were not able to get any van support nor were there race provided water stops along the way. She told us that she had a leg cramp and was having trouble walking. Nearly 40 minutes after her projected finish time she finished her last leg.
While our next runner was out, we got a call from our team captain who had been contacted by the race director. The race
director told him our team was so far behind that we might not cross the finish line while the finish line was still up. Van 2 got what they wanted, but it came from a race official. After runner 3 (in my van) finished his last leg, the race officials were letting volunteers go home and cleaning up the exchanges.
In the end it all worked out. We got to cross the finish line together as a team and while the festivities were going on. Our adjusted finish time was about 33 hours and 15 minutes, nearly 2 hours slower than we expected. Once we started drinking, everyone forgot about the little bit of drama and we were able to just have a good time. The best part of the experience was the it brought us all that much closer together. I cannot wait for my next Ragnar experience.
