lightswitch raves: we keep on running, through a red light like we're trying to burn the night away

Ragnar was just, exactly what I needed. I wanted to make sure I captured it somewhere.

We had perfect weather. I packed to anticipate almost every possibility. I would have packed very differently, knowing what I know now.

Early morning departure on Friday. 9a posted start, check in at 8a, departure from the house by 6a.

Perfect run conditions and a beautiful morning.

But the rains from the previous few nights flooded out many of the first legs, including the most challenging, hilly leg (for which you get a special medal, thanks Reebok). First a 3 hour start delay, then notice that the first 8 legs were cancelled. We were given a new start time based on our predicted run times, such that we'd pick up where we would have been at 5p. Which put Van 1's actual start time at something like 8p. Almost 12 hours past when we had planned to start. Plenty of time to decorate the truck, and take a stroll around Antietam NHP, and grab a nice brewpub dinner and a quick snooze.

By the time we did get started, it was night already. Good thing I'm used to running in the dark, because these were some DARK roads.

Also learned the hard way to pay attention to race updates. My nighttime leg, which was supposed to be 5.2 mi, turned out to be this:

But I was strangely happy about it, and felt like I could conquer anything.

After a strange night of sleep in a parking lot at a creamery, involving burglar cats, ridiculous cows, and one obnoxious rooster, we started on our second legs. I chose to make up for my missing first leg by joining Nancy on her morning run, before heading out on mine. It was nice to have some company. 14.3mi total on the day, with some average pace somewhere around 10:00/mi. Though it was the least race-y of any race event I've ever done and it didn't really matter in the end what pace you were going. It was so refreshing to just be able to go out and run, at whatever time of day, and just enjoy the comraderie. Honestly, 75% of this experience is who is in your van with you and how well they can roll with the punches. With all of the last minute changes, it was really hard for a type-A like me to let go, but once I could do that, it was fantastic. I would do another one of these again anyday.