Leg number 9. Preparation for the 2009 DC RAGNAR Relay

Last weekend was the 2009 DC RAGNAR relay. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the race, it is a 12 man 196 mile relay from Cumberland, Maryland to RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C. Each team is allowed two support vehicles to transport the runners to and from each exchange point. Rather than divide the 196 mile journey into 12 equal legs, the course is divided into 36 legs, each of a varying distance and difficulty. The runners are then assigned a corresponding leg and must run 3 times (runner 1 for example must run legs 1, 13, and 25).

One runner from each of my group runs had competed in a similar event called "Hood to Coast". When they returned from the competition, they exclaimed that it was an "incredibly challenging event", and that "it was as hard on the body as a marathon," despite being a shorter distance. It took them two weeks to recover from the race and for their training to return to normal.

My brother (and now coach), Jason, sent me an email 3 weeks ago titled "Best Friends". The content of the email was information about the RAGNAR relay, which, did not quite correspond with the subject of the email; but I came to find out that it was remarkably appropriate. How could this be an appropriate subject you ask? I challenge you to spend 24 hours in a van with 5 other competitors and try to not forge new friendships.

Considering that I am training for a marathon, this seemed like a good litmus test... A chance for me to see at what level my fitness is, so I jumped at the opportunity. The team was being organized by Jason's very capable coworker Bridget, a Saucony rep. and we would be running as a Saucony sponsored team.

Being familiar with my mileage and training, Jason touted my fitness to Bridget and I was designated as runner number 9. The RAGNAR website describes the three legs I would be running in the following way; a 10.5 very hard leg, an easy 3.2 leg, and a very hard 7.0 leg. The legs are designated as easy, hard, or very hard based on the distance and net elevation gain/loss. 24 hours to run 20.5 miles, sounds easy enough right?

Each team is asked to give an estimated pace for each runner so that the event coordinators can stagger the start and allow most of the runners to finish together within a 2 hour window. Jason informed me that he had put me down for a 6:30/mile pace. Remember those slow runs I was talking about earlier? I have been doing most of my distance runs at 7:30-8 minute pace. I had done a 10 minute tempo run during a workout and was able to labor out a 5:45 pace, but I was unsure that I would be able to maintain a 6:30 pace for a total of 20.5 miles over 24 hours while being sleep deprived and cooped up in a van.

In an effort to better prepare for the race, I did a few double runs to see how my body would respond. Thursday night I would meet with the Potomac Runners Group and log about 8.5 miles, Friday morning I'd run an easy 40 minutes, and Friday after work I would log another 6.5 miles. Although it was a couple of miles shy of what I would be completing on race day, it seemed to be a close enough approximation that I was confident I would be able to complete my 3 legs on race day.

Now I just had to find a way to incorporate sleep deprivation into my training and I would be ready to roll.

Saturday night dancing at Saint Ex until 2:30 am, home to bed at 3:15 am, up at 8 am for Sunday distance run... Sleep deprivation... Check.