Well, I know you have been sitting at your computer, waiting for me to update this thing. The Lady and I have made our move to Minneapolis, and secured ourselves a dwelling in the suburb of St. Louis Park. We have since survived our first summer in Minneapolis and are looking forward to fall.
It’s been busy, and we’ve traveled around a bit. One of the outstanding activities of the summer was the Ragnar Great River Relay.
This was one of the best ways a person could spend 24 hours in a van. It was a 195 mile race run by teams of 12 runners. Each runner completes 3 legs varying from 3 miles to almost 9. This served as my motivation to stay in shape this summer and I was able to complete about 20 miles averaging 6:55 minute pace. That was better than I expected, but close to what I was aiming for. We finished in 72th place out of 219 teams with a total time of 26 hours 45 minutes. Not too shabby.
Jarvy has a good post with pics here.
Things that I learned from this event:
- Larger vans are not necessary, but a good idea. We didn’t expect every full size van in the metro to be rented this weekend, and therefore waiting until a month ahead of time to reserve our vehicles. We eneded up with two “extended” mini vans. While it is legal and possible to put seven adults in such a vehicle, more space would be nice for a 24 hour period.
- Four pounds of trail mix is awesome.
- Bring toilet paper.
- Bring warm clothes; it gets cold at night when you’re not running.
- Bring a lot of water. Gatorade can only be tasty for so long.
- You will experience chafe. Bring some sort of lubricant: Body Glide, Chamois Butter. Nipple band-aids aren’t a bad idea either.
- Sleep is less important that you think.
- Beer is good and good for you.
Ragnar puts on several events around the country, so find an event near you, grab 12 friends or strangers, and get running!
Monkey with Chainsaw 