The Hay is in the Barn

I thought I should do a brief update of our training and the stuff the team has been doing together.
Ragnar Relay
Quite a few of us did the Ragnar Relay which is a 195 mile relay run from Winona to Minneapolis. The coolest part about the race is that it has prizes for costumes and cool teams (like us ). We rocked the race as Ragnar 911. Led by our very own Lt. Dangle – Ryan Foss – our team pretty much was the talk of the relay. After the first leg we even had groupies – who would pay just to have their pictures with us.
Kate, Aleisha, Paul, Tom, Darshan, Liz, Laura, Sarah, Tesha (she liked the team so much that she even joined the Amsterdam team), Ryan, Graham and Glen. We started at 11:30 on Friday morning and got done around 5:30 on Saturday. For an activity that involved little sleep and a lot of hard hill runs – it sure was a lot of fun. Check out more cool pictures at Ragnar Pictures
We also entered the competition for best video based on the Ragnar Relay. The team came up with a video that is an instant youTube hit. You can check it out here
The Ragnar 911 Video

Weekend Training Runs
It sucks to run alone and even sucks more when you have to do a long run alone. So the team has been doing its long runs as a team and meeting at either the river or the lakes to get our long runs in. Ryan, Clea, Darshan and Glen have organized routes for the team and have helped keep the team on track with its training

20 Mile Long Run
As anyone training for a marathon will tell you this is the most important long run of them all. So to make it easier Bolder Options helped organize a supported 20 Miler for the team. Thanks to Ryan, Richard and Troy who helped get the runners goodies at each of the water stops. We did the grand rounds starting bright and early at the Harriet bandshell and making it all the way along the parkway, up the river and along the chain of lakes. Little did we know – but when we got done most of us had actually covered a little over 21 miles. We topped that off with a few beers in the park and then headed home to rest our weary legs.

So now the team is in taper – reduced mileage and a lot of eating. We are looking forward to our pre race send-off party on the 8th of October (watch for the post). As they say the hay is in the barn and the racehorses are itching to run. Amsterdam here we come …