Race Recap: Ragnar Trail--Appalachians

I’ve only been home for less than a day, and my head is still spinning.

For the past few weeks, I have been consumed with preparing for my first trail race, the Ragnar Trail Appalachians Relay in West Virginia. I’ve been so excited because this is different from everything I’ve ever done as a runner. Usually I am a road runner, so I had to buy a set of trail shoes and change my whole attitude about running to participate in this race. Plus, it involved camping.

Erin picked me up on Thursday afternoon, and we drove to Bruceton Mills, WV. It was supposed to take us 3.5 hours, but we had some slight deviations along the way. First, every road trip I’ve ever been on has involved a Starbucks Frappucino, and since we had limited phone service, it was difficult to find a Starbucks on the way. We perservered and found one, though.

Next, when we arrived at Big Bear Lake, we should have just followed the signs to Big Bear Lake Camping Ground, but instead we listened to Siri, who told us to turn onto a series of back roads that eventually became a single-track dirt road. It was scary. When the road seemed to lead deep into the forest, Erin had had enough, and she backtracked to the main road, turned right. . .where we saw (500 feet away) the entrance to Ragnar Village. sigh.

We dropped off our gear at our Tent and then we had to shuttle back to the Village. The line was huge, so the women next to us got the bright idea to hitchhike with incoming racers, so we got into the back of a nice woman’s van, and she drove us back to the campsite.

We set up our tents and canopies together--two 8-person relay teams and one 4-person ultra team. The sun came out for a tiny bit, so we took some pictures.

That night a fierce storm rocked Tent City. Tents and canopies were knocked down, smashed, and blown away. Jenn and I braced the walls of our tent during the worst of it, and Steve and Mike actually stood outside in the storm, holding onto the METAL poles of the canopies. Heroes.

Wanna see pictures of the trails and the race? How about Sasquatch? Click here to read the full post.

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