Ragnar Relay

This was my first experience running a Ragnar (Napa). I had an amazing time with my team, the camaraderie was top-​notch, and it was fun meeting my team-​mates. I took the place of someone who dropped out on my husband’s team. It was a great experience and I’m happy to have participated. However, there were a significant amount of issues with the event.
Signage: the lack of signage was disconcerting. Several times along the course I was concerned I was lost. At one turn a sign was missing and had I not saw runners ahead of me I wouldn’t have known which way to go.
Safety: my midnight run was by far my funnest leg however I was equally afraid after having to run past open fields, an empty train station, under a dark freeway overpass… Perhaps if I was running amongst more participants, but there were times I was alone for over a mile running past areas that I didn’t feel safe and were not adequately lit. The fact that I ran past a few men who appeared to be homeless wandering the streets after 1am didn’t help either.
If you’re going to post that you have a FREE coffee and hot chocolate station, please actually have a FREE hot chocolate and coffee station. There was no hot beverage of any kind available at station 24 as posted on the app, the hydration station was difficult to find it because it was tucked back in the brush and the volunteer working the station was bundled up under a blanket trying to get some sleep. Maybe he would have stayed warm/​awake if there was coffee. Go figure.
We were told that the runner who finished the longest leg would receive a hat at the completion of the longest leg. No hat. Also would have been nice to have someone calling out team numbers on this leg. The staff/​volunteers were only was concerned about keeping people off the exchange area… but we had no clue which runners were coming in because they were standing in the way watching the runners come in. When we later went looking for the hat at the festival we were told to email customer service.
Shirts: Our team was shorted a Ragnar shirt. When I went to the t-​shirt trade-​in booth to get the correct size they had a meager selection of sizes to choose from. I originally ordered a men’s small, I received a women’s XS. Again, we were told to email customer service about it.
Didn’t seem like any of the volunteers knew what was going on and they had to go searching for staff members to answer questions. The few staff members that the volunteers went to speak to didn’t seem to want to talk to the participants themselves.
The free pizza was nice. We almost missed out on it because we thought we had to pay for it.

195.9 miles, 30+ hours, 6 people crammed onto one van and very little sleep. We must be freaking crazy! Yeah, I’m pretty darn excited!
Sign up for our team was easy (Mountain House Running Club) and we got regular emails. A few changes to the legs were made last minute but we were kept well informed. I can’t wait to run along the beach, over Golden Gate Bridge again and through Napa Valley to finish in Calistoga sometime Saturday (not loving getting up at 3:30am to be in San Francisco to start at 7:30am though. lol)
Pray I don’t get lost while Running solo in the dark please! :) Updates later and throughout the course on my IG (42Kcookie)
OMG, so much freaking fun! Who would have thought? We had a couple of issues with being misinformed in regards to the legs of the race but other than that it ran pretty smoothly.
We were all given information on each of our legs before starting and found most of the distances listed to be incorrect, some were longer, some were shorter and they definitely got the difficulty messed up.
Example: my first leg was supposed to be 5.5 miles (actually 6) and listed as ”hard”, it was the second leg of the race and the one that goes over Golden Gate Bridge. The course was up and down sand covered steps (very slippery!), through a wooded area where you had to physically climb over fallen tree’s and giant rocks then down onto the beach to run on the sand and then back up and across the bridge. I LOVED this! Even ran in the ocean for a bit (by accident mind) but had me thinking ”wtf? if that is listed as ”hard” then what on earth is my final leg listed as”very hard” going to be like?”. Turned out that it was actually EASIER as it was all just road running up and down hill. Maybe they rated it as harder due to the fact that it was 50% longer and dark for part of it (don’t worry, I had a headlamp and NoxGear).
Volunteers were good, exchanges went faurly smoothly and everyone was in high spirits. You would never actually think that 34hrs spent running or in a van with no flushing toilets, running water or even sleep would be so much fun.
The big exchanges (every 6) had massage, first aid and a couple had snacks and vendors selling Running merchandise. The Finish Line was much the same with the addition of the Beer tent, it would have been nice to have a few more vendors though. One thing I would also like to see in future years is the Ragnar gear they sell at the event to be customized. All of the gear was just standard and I would have loved to have got one of the zip jackets with ”Ragnar Napa 2015″ instead of the standard ”Ragnar”.
Personal:
Running with part of my Running Club was a great experience, very supportive! My 1^st leg went without any hicups but a big downhill on my 2^nd leg had me injure my Knee somehow, I got a stabbing pain just under my Kneecap which shot up my thigh every so often when my foot hit the ground so I was KT taped up ti the nines (by a lovely team mate) for my last leg and those first 20 – 25 minutes hurt like hell but with a slower pace and once warmed up all was fine. I actually woke up the following morning not hurting at all! The importance of Stretching and Foam Rolling y’all!
TIPS:
— Get a good team together. It helps if you all know each other.
— Plan who is the strongest Runners and give then the longer /​harder legs
— Train
— You WILL need water changes of clothes, wet wipes, light up vests, tail lights and some basic first aid kit.
— Plan your refuel (scope out restaurants along the way before you leave) and take snacks.
— Don’t take it too seriously.
— Have fun.