Woodstock to Bronx

New York Ragnar:
Mixed Team Patriotic Potomac Pacers

12 runners, 2 cars, 181 miles, 25:08 hours. Run, drive, eat, shut eyes (maybe), repeat. And have FUN!
This past weekend, some friends and I drove up to NY for the first ever NY Ragnar Relay Series! Fortunately I was leg #8 of 12, so I got to ride in Van #2, meaning we left at 7:30am to head north rather than 5am. By early evening, Debbie came running up to exchange #6, and Julie, our first runner took off for her 8 mile leg. Time could not fly fast enough for all 6 of us from van #2 to get out on the road running... the car ride was nice, but we were all pretty excited to move on our own feet. My first leg, just over 8 miles, was SO pretty! For the majority of the miles I was running along a gravel/dirt road with a stream running beside me. The sun was slowly going down, the birds were chirping. It was so pleasant! Nonetheless, I was happy to see the finish of my leg at exchange #7 where Aaron waited at the top of a series of some pretty long hills.
Aaron, then David, Patrick and MJ, then Julie again all did awesome. We witnessed some serious tackling of hills and passing opponents as miles went by.
The next leg, after about 1.5 hours of rest near a park in the car, was in the DARK. It was such a nice night, not too cold. We each wore headlamps and butt-lights through the night, which was one of the rules for the race- about 7pm-6am we were required to wear reflective vests and specifics lights while running. My leg started arount 3 am and was around 6 miles.Our last legs were "eventful," to say the least. The picture above it post-losing-Julie. Apparently a sign that was at a critical turn less than 1/4 mile from the start of Julie's last leg was moved out of site, keeping her and a few other runners from turning left onto this highway that she did not turn back onto until after a mile-long hill, her leg went from about 4.5 miles to around 7miles in length, including a killer hill that was not supposed to be in the cards. We were SOOO relieved to see her at this point! We tried to follow and cheer on/give water to each runner about every 3 miles, and she was not anywhere in sight when we went to meet up with her. Whew! She's such a good sport!
Julie and I had finished our last legs... this is what comes to mind to do when you've been running (literally) on very little sleep. :)
We did it!!!! This is our team (minus Debbie who had already taken off), after running across the finish line in the Bronx (upper Central Park) with our clinch-tail-end-runner, MJ! 25:08, 2nd place in our division and SOOO happy to have had such a good time all along the way!!!