Ragnar is Upon Me

And it’s not the Vikings mascot (our team mascot’s name is Ragnar so I find it fitting I’m doing a relay in this series!). That’s right folks, this will probably be my last post before my trip as I leave work around 2 pm tomorrow and will be heading to the airport via Supershuttle to fly to Portland where I will meet up with my team to head up to meet Van 1 at the first exchange zone somewhere south of Blaine, WA on our approximate 187 mile jaunt from Blaine to Langley, WA, located on Whidby Island in the Puget Sound area of Washington state. I can’t wait.

I’ll hopefully arrive in Portland at 10:40 as my flight states and meet up with Annette where I will be staying Wednesday and Thursday night. Thursday will be a bit of sightseeing and shopping to get snacks for the trip and early Friday morning we will be loaded up and ready for the drive to Washington to meet up with our other 6 runners who will be completing their first legs as we arrive. My first leg will start sometime around 7 pm on Friday, where I will be running 6.3 or so miles to the second exchange zone where Van 1 will take over again and my group will rest and head up to meet up in the next exchange. My second leg, a 3.5 mile run, will start around 4 am Saturday morning and topping it off with a final 4.2 mile run that will have us finish around 2 pm or so, in Langley, WA, on Whidby Island. Temps are looking to be upper 60s/low 70s during the day and nothing down further than low 50s at night, with sun and partly cloudy. Perfect weather in my mind. After the race we'll drink a beer or two at the after party and then head somewhere south to stay at someone's friends place and apparently there is a bar with live music nearby. So should be a fun time with a bunch of runners. The really fun part is I know only one of the people, and her from email and blog reading, the rest are all people that I don't know except from emails going on about the relay...but I'm super excited. After all, they are all runners and so far in my experiences in meeting up with runners from online groups they have all been even more fun in person. Can't wait.

My flight back is a red eye through Vegas and I may or may not be up for a full day of work after. We’ll see what happens. I told my boss I’d most likely be in in the morning, but we’ll see how I feel when I get off the plane at 5 am. I might work the morning, the afternoon or all day, it all just depends. Will hopefully get a report written up and posted with some pictures by Tuesday evening at the latest.