Anywho.....the race report!!
Leg 6 - 2.7 miles - Easy
Unlike Morgan, whether my first leg of a Ragnar is 5 miles or less than 3 miles, it always kills me and I have no clue why. This leg started off with a steep decline that lasted about a half mile. As such, I blew the brakes, let it rip and had about 6 kills all within about 3 and a half minutes. This was my first Ragnar rocking my Vibram Five-Finger Bikilas, and I absolutely loved them. However, I had not trained in them on such steep declines as what I experienced at the beginning of this leg. Once things leveled out, I noticed a burning on my right heel and I knew a blister was brewing. It didn't bother me too much throughout the rest of the leg, as I was struggling with a pretty strong headwind instead. I love being runner 6, though cause there ain't nothing better than running into an exchange with 11 other Chasquis cheering you on! My phone was charging during this leg, so I'm unsure of my pace and time. Let's say it was average.
Leg 18 -
In anticipation of this race, and knowing I would not have any legs longer than 5.5 miles this Ragnar, the longest training run I did was a 5-miler. Imagine my shock upon discovering (2 hours before running my second leg, mind you) that my 5.4 mile leg had been increased to 7. Wow. So, I got all drama about it for about 5 minutes and then decided that I was just gonna do it dirty. The run went really well. The first half was a nice downhill and the rest was relatively flat. I ran the first half with a girl that did the run 7 minutes walk 1 minute thing, and it seemed to work for her. During the last half of the race I ran with a high school hoops coach/psychology teacher from L.A. I thought I could bait him by talking UNLV basketball, since we heavily recruit of the L.A. area; we ended up solving most of the world's problems and chatted about the. Did you know that, among a slew of other things, a youth receiving support from three non-parental adults, effectively communicating with his/her parents and actively engaging in service to others has an exponentially higher chance of "beating the odds" than a youth that doesn't have those things? ANYWHO...we had a good chat and it certainly helped pass the time and take my mind off of my sore feet and blister. Avg pace: 9:35
Leg 30 - 4.3 miles - Moderate
Dude, moderate my butt crack. This is where the wheels came off the bus. While the exchange right on the Del Mar shores was epic, I was quickly swept away by a mile-long climb back into the innards of the California coast. For this run I had to leave the five fingers behind and lace up the old murdered-out Nike Zoom Vomero 4's. I absolutely had to have some padding underneath the now-agitated blister on the bottom of my heel. Had the blister not been there, I would have been in the 5-fingers again. After running in my 5-fingers since Thanksgiving, the Nikes were now extremely heavy-feeling and cumbersome, and because of all the extra padding, my stride was messed up as my foot seemed to be landing earlier than what I was used to. Pair that up with my fatigue and the fact I was running straight uphill, and you've got yourself one miserable run. Seriously, it felt like I was moving backwards the majority of the time. How fortuitous was it, however, that just as I was running through the Torrey Pines Golf Course entrance, I got caught by my favorite high school basketball coach/psychology teacher! Turns out his name is Jim Smiley, and we just chatted out the remaining 2 miles of the run. Thank goodness for the smiley. Avg pace 13:13. Wow.
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