SoCal Ragnar Relay, Leg 2

With the team reassembled, we jumped in the Tahoe and drove down the 15 to the next major exchange. The plan was to try to catch a few hours of sleep before our shift started again. According to projections, I was going to take the baton from Euri at 2:00am. This next major exchange point was actually a model/remote control airplane “airport.” Essentially all it consisted of was a tiny runway, a covered picnic area, a couple sheds and a lot of open space. The field everyone was using to sleep in was god awful uncomfortable. I did wear earplugs to try to drown out the sound of people cheering in the distance as runners came in and left and of vans coming in and leaving, but I still think I only slept for about 20 minutes. 

This mini airfield wasn’t set up to handle this much traffic coming in and out so the rest of my team jumped in the Tahoe to get in line to leave and I waited for Euri at the exchange. Ironically enough I ran into my dad who was running on a team in the AARP division. He was having knee pain and could sleep so was up wondering around in the dark. His team wasn’t as cohesive as mine and he wasn’t having much fun. We didn’t talk long before Euri came in, pretty much right on schedule. I took the baton and tore ass out of dodge. 

The weather for this leg was perfect; cold and humid. My leg was 8.5 miles with a big climb in it, but with the weather being what it was, I felt like I could run forever. In fact, the hardest part of the whole thing was keeping track of my kills. With everyone wearing headlights and flashing tail lights, I was always able to see people way out in front of me, spurring me on to run faster. I was having a blast. While the big climb was tough, there was actually more downhill to the course and I loved blazing down that. 

All too soon my run had ended and I came flying into the exchange zone. I slapped the baton bracelet onto Dave’s arm and he was off. I was beaming with pride after my run, both with how fast I ran and with how many kills I notched - 38. We were in the thick of the teams, now. With my run done, I jumped in the back of the Tahoe and relaxed. We were going to have to get moving to the next exchange points pretty quickly because everyone else’s legs were fairly short. Though in five short miles, Dave was able to rack up 30 kills. We could tell we were going to run out of room on our back window for all the tallies pretty quick, but that’s a good problem to have.