Jen and I are back from our Ragnar weekend and we’re so ready to divulge all the details! We had such a blast and today, we wanted to do a recap of our experience and share some lessons learned with all of you guys who might want to try it out next year.
If you have been listening to the podcast for a while, you’ll know that Jen and I had our worries about certain aspects of this race and we’re discussing whether or not they came to fruition. We also talk about our favorite memories, what we’ve learned, and what we loved about the whole experience.
Join us this week for a really fun recap of our experience at Ragnar, and hopefully you’ll want to join in on the fun next time too. Jen and I both have found a new love for trail running and can’t wait to get out there and try more races like these!
We are doing the Ragnar again next year, so if you want to join in on the fun, you need to sign up now because the teams are going to fill out fast. You can sign up now and reserve your spot here, and all the information will be there! I hope you join us!
What You’ll Learn From This Episode:
- Our favorite memories from the Ragnar weekend.
- What our glamping experience was like.
- How Jen felt about the race start experience.
- Our takeaways and lessons learned from the Ragnar weekend.
- What we found most challenging over the weekend.
- How we would approach and prepare for next year’s race differently.
- What we found to be easier than we had anticipated.
- An incident that acted as a testament to all the mental work that we do.
Listen to the Full Episode:
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- Ragnar Wisconsin Trail
Full Episode Transcript:
Welcome to The Not Your Average Runner Podcast. If you’re a woman who is midlife and plus sized and you want to start running but don’t know how, or if it’s even possible, you’re in the right place. Using proven strategies and real-life experience, certified running and life coach Jill Angie shares how you can learn to run in the body you have right now.
Jill: Hey rebels, you are listening to episode 112 of The Not Your Average Runner Podcast. I’m your host, Jill Angie, and I am here with coach Jen Lamplough because we are going to do a full-on Ragnar recap this week. Hey Jen.
Jen: Hey.
Jill: We’re just giggling because it took us three times to get the intro right.
Jen: We have Ragnar brain.
Jill: We have Ragnar brain. We do, in the best possible way. So I don’t even know where we should start. Where do you want to start?
Jen: I am just – I have realized these last couple of days since we’ve been home, I am in a post-race depression kind of and I’m like, I love trail running. I have to figure out how to do more trail running because I’m in love with it.
Jill: Yeah. It’s kind of amazing. I keep thinking about what it was like to be in the woods in the dark at night and how I thought I was going to be terrified, and it was the opposite. It was amazing.
Jen: I know. I freaking loved it. I mean, I will say, if I didn’t have Lu with me, because we doubled up teams and so we had two people running in the dark together, if I would have went by myself, it probably would be a different story. But because I knew she was there with me, I freaking loved it.
Jill: Yeah. Isn’t that fun? Nothing really changed. We were still in the same woods by ourselves, but our thoughts were totally different about it based on having a partner there. Super fun. So alright, so let’s start at the top. Let me ask you this. What was your favorite memory from the whole weekend?
Jen: Oh gosh, there’s so many, but I think getting there was really exciting. I had so much build up in my brain about – I just wanted to get there. I wanted to make sure I had all my stuff and that we packed everything, and then once we got there, I was like oh hell yeah, let’s do this. So that was a great memory for me. And then I think the running in the dark honestly was probably my favorite part.
Jill: Yeah, I think so too. Isn’t that funny that the thing we were – we were both so freaked about that ahead of time and then it ended up being kind of both of our favorite memory for sure. And I think that moment when we all crossed the finish line together at the very end and realized like, holy shit, we did it. And I don’t cry much. I started to cry. I just had tears running down my face.
Jen: I know. You cried before I did and I’m always the one crying. I’m always the weeper, you know what I mean? I looked over at you and I was like oh my god, so I’m crying, you’re crying, everybody else started crying. It was amazing.
Jill: So what do you think we should do? Should we go back and kind of recap everything that happened? I think we should kind of do that. Let’s do that. So we drove up from Chicago. I mean, everybody came in from all over the place. How many states did we have represented?
Jen: Oh gosh, it was coast to coast. We had east coast to west coast.
Jill: Yeah, I mean we had four Wisconsin people and then everybody else – we had two Illinois people.
Jen: Ohio. Colorado.
Jill: But then we had 10 other states represented.
Jen: I think we had the most diverse team there too. I think not only location wise but like, age wise and body type and race and all. We for sure had the most diverse team there.
Jill: Yeah. And I just like – I’m still so proud that team one, everybody on the team was 50 and older. I just think that’s so awesome.
Jen: It was super cool.
Jill: So yeah, so we got there varying times on Thursday. Some folks drove in, some folks flew. We had one person, Julie who was supposed to arrive on Thursday night and thanks to a flooding in Houston, her flight got delayed and then delayed and delayed and she didn’t get there until around nine o clock. But out of 16 people, we only had one arrival that was messed up due to the weather, so that was kind of amazing.
And let’s talk about the weather. We were so anxious ahead of time that it was going to be like, raining and thunderstorms the whole time and then it just wasn’t.
Jen: I know, it was crazy. It was humid as hell. It might as well have been raining because the humidity made everything just as wet as if it had been raining. But no, thankfully we did not have. I was just so afraid we were going to have these huge thunderstorms and we were going to be delayed and we were going to be in a flooded tent and I had all these scenarios in my head and none of that happened.
Jill: None of it happened. Although Charlotte had the best line of the weekend. Keep saying she’s from Chicago. She’s from Colorado. And it’s very dry there, and she’s just like, why do you put so much water in your air? We’re like, I don’t know, that’s just how it is down here at sea level.
Most everybody arrived on Thursday night and we went, we watched the safety video and checked out Ragnar village and explored our glamp-site, which tell everybody about the glamp-site because that was just ridiculous.
Jen: And I’m not a camper at all. I think I’ve been camping twice in my life. And so I was just sort of like, I don’t know what this is going to be like. And you walked in and it’s all of these tents and each tent was a pod. So you had four sleeping tents connected by three – what I called living rooms. So it was like this camping condo basically.
Jill: With a rug. We had a fucking rug.
Jen: A beautiful rug and chairs and like, solar lights, and cots and all that. Don’t get me wrong, it was still camping, it wasn’t – we weren’t staying in an actual condo, but as far as camping goes, it was pretty lux. And then in the middle of the glamping was the concierge station, which we happened to just be right across from.
And they had charging stations and bug spray and coffee in the morning and they always had water and Gatorade and games and smores stuff. I mean, it just was so – and the guys were cute. And super nice and fun, and it was so awesome. And the porta-potties were porta-potties, but as far as porta-potties go, they were not that bad.
They didn’t smell great but they didn’t smell as bad as a concert porta-potty smells or pre-race. And then they had the sinks in there that you could pump the water. So you could actually feel like…
Jill: And there were paper towels.
Jen: There were paper towels and toilet paper and they cleaned them every 10 hours so that was nice too. It wasn’t three days of no cleaning the porta-potties. They cleaned them every 10 hours.
Jill: That’s the grossest.
Jen: Which was amazing.
Jill: The glamp-site porta-potties were way better than the general use porta-potties.
Jen: Or the porta-potties for the peon as I said.
Jill: Yeah exactly. We had campfires. That was the other thing. They set up campfires for us. They were gas-powered campfires too so nobody had to put wood on them or anything. And we were able to sit around the fire. At three in the morning when you are waiting for your leg to go, that’s kind of cool to be able to sit around a campfire and wait for the text to come that we’re a mile away from the finish, better come down to the transition time.
Jen: The nice thing about the gas-powered campfires is there was no smoke and so you don’t get that campfire smell but it’s also you don’t reek of smoke and you’re not getting smoke in your lungs and your eyes. It was really nice to have those little – I think they were propane. They had propane tanks and they were super cool.
Jill: They were super cool. I was very, very pleased with those. So the glamping was kind of amazing and so I’m all excited to go camping now and I’m like, Andy, can we get cots? And he’s like, no.
Jen: I will never ever camp unless it’s glamping.
Jill: I know. I’m just like, now I’m spoiled.
Jen: You know what else I was surprised about the camping? I mean yeah, it was humid, but there were no bugs. I mean, northern Wisconsin, like the state bird of Wisconsin is the mosquito. I mean, I just was like – there were no bugs. I couldn’t believe it. I think I put bug spray on once.
Jill: Do you think it was the time of year?
Jen: Yeah, probably the time of year and it was cooler. I mean, it wasn’t warm but I don’t know, it must have been the time of year because there were no bugs.
Jill: Yeah, I came home with a lot of bug bites that I didn’t remember getting.
Jen: I do have several bug bites but I don’t remember being like, all the bugs, you know?
Jill: Yeah, no, for sure. For sure. And especially out in the woods. I think we had more bugs at the campsite than we did in the woods, which surprised me. I have a lot of mystery bruises too where I’m like, I don’t know how I bruised that part of my body but okay.
Jen: I didn’t fall or anything so I don’t know why I’m bruised but I have mystery bruises too. I took a lot of tumbles and almost fell, especially during the night run, but I didn’t actually fall. We had several people fall but I didn’t actually fall.
Jill: Yeah. And so the first night sleeping in the tent was like – I think you and I were both kind of anxious about oh my gosh, what’s going to happen tomorrow and so we kind of didn’t sleep our best because of that. But other than that, it was fairly comfortable sleeping on – we each brought a sleeping pad to put under our sleeping bag on the cot and that worked out pretty well.
Jen: I think Thursday night was more of a party though than I thought it would be. I thought everybody would be super serious and in bed, but most people next to us had their music playing until – the quiet hours were midnight to six. But I mean, people were partying and I was so shocked. I’m like, well, I guess they’re younger and their bodies can handle it, but I was like, I need my eight hours.
Jill: And the race doesn’t start – for us, we had one of the earliest starts in the whole race. That was still at 9am. So some people weren’t starting the race until like, 11 o clock or 12. So yeah, of course they could stay up, drink, be hungover, and then still go and run.
Jen: And they did.
Jill: So yeah. But what did you think about the way the race started and what was that experience was like for you?
Jen: I loved it because we all went down to see our first runners off. So our first runners were Charlotte and Gail. And it was so cool. I loved the part – so one of the teams was a team of veterans and one of the veterans on that team like, they handed them the microphone and he sang the national anthem and it was just – he had the voice like an angel.
And that was so – it was just so cool. The start line is woods. You’re standing at the edge of the woods and you’re looking at the woods and you’re like, everyone’s about to go into those woods and none of us have been in those woods before expect Carol and Dora who had done a race there before. So it’s just like, you’re running into this abyss, so it was just this really sort of cool and fun and – yeah, it was awesome.
Jill: Yeah, because it was like they ran the trail and it just disappeared into deep woods. And you’re like, okay, bye.
Jen: Poof, they’re gone. And it’s like, you can’t go in there and cheer them on or anything. It was just super cool. And then the waiting started.
Jill: Yeah. So you’d have to wait for the person before you to finish their loop before you could go back. So we had a lot of like, trying to keep – okay, I know this person usually runs this pace on the road, this is probably their trail pace, this is how long it’s going to take them, and we were doing a lot of estimating all weekend.
Jen: Yeah. It was for sure a lesson in patience. I’m not used to sitting around and not doing things. That never happens in my life.
Jill: Yeah. I think next year we’re going to bring a lot of games.
Jen: For sure.
Jill: But it was kind of exciting. So Charlotte and Gail were the first loop and then Carol and I were the second. We had the second loop together. And so just like, standing in the tent waiting for Charlotte and Gail to come in was so freaking exciting because we didn’t know what to expect, what are the trails going to be like, we didn’t know.
But they came in and what I thought was so cool is we had one bib for the team that we just handed from runner to runner to runner. And the whole organization of the whole entire thing was just so well done. I’m in awe. I mean, obviously they’ve done this hundreds of times but damn, they had it down. They really did.
Jen: I just kept saying like, this is – A, how well it was organized, and B, what a huge operation it is. They’re a well-oiled machine I think at this point but my god, the work that went in to making that a well-oiled machine. Like coming from a hospitality and event background, I know what goes into that kind of stuff at some level and it’s just – I mean, it was so impressive and just really sort of flawless.
Jill: Yeah, it really was. There were no fuck ups that I could tell. I mean, they probably know about some, but think about how many times, like how many iterations did they have to fuck stuff up to be like, okay, we’re not going to do it that way again to get to the point where they’re at now.
Jen: We had that same experience because this was our first Ragnar and like, the second we were done we were like, alright, here’s what we’re going to do differently next year to make it better. It’s the same thing. Next year it’s going to be better because we know this, this, and this now. And it’s not anything you could learn other than doing it. Somebody can’t teach you what it’s like to run a Ragnar race in the woods. You have to do it to understand the true meaning of it and what it takes to be able to do it.
Jill: Yeah, for sure. Well, so what do you think was your biggest takeaway from this weekend?
Jen: Oh my gosh, I had so many. One of them was sort of how much the mental work is important, especially for something like this because of the waiting. You have nothing but time to think and if your thoughts are unorganized or if your brain is a mess, it’s real easy to go down a deep dark tunnel. And so having a well-organized mind is equally as important as being physically trained for this.
Jill: I would say even more so.
Jen: Yeah. And I would train – now knowing what that terrain is like, it’s much different than the trails that I trained on and what I have available to me where I live. And so now knowing that, I will definitely train differently. Like make my runs harder and longer.
My biggest takeaway was like, how much I really love trail running because you know what’s so cool about it is you have to concentrate so hard on not falling that you can’t really think about anything else. There’s no mental drama. There’s no when is it going to end. It was just like oh wait, we’re done?
All you could think about is not falling basically and I loved it. And it was so peaceful. And there are actual scientific studies out there that talk about how being in nature is good for your mental health and what it does for your mental health. And boy, I’ll tell you what, that is so true. Being in those woods, it was like therapy.
Jill: Yeah, I completely agree. Especially at night. It’s so weird. I’m still reeling from the fact that I was so worried about that part of it and that turned out to be the easiest and most enjoyable part. The whole weekend was amazing and enjoyable but that was such a mind-blower for me.
Jen: What was your biggest takeaway?
Jill: Honestly, we were – some of us on the team were under-prepared. Including myself for sure because I had trained on some pretty technical trails but I hadn’t done a lot of hill training and I hadn’t done longer trail runs. I think my longest trail run before the race was maybe four miles.
And so I’m also training for a marathon at the same time and I was trying to balance the two, and so I think my biggest takeaway was I need more time on the trails, like, a lot more time on the trails. Not once every other week but probably one to two times a week. And deliberately seeking out hard hilly trails that are harder than what we would be doing at Ragnar.
And I’ve got one trail near me that I could do like that and I did it once it I was like, oh, I don’t need to do that again. That’s way harder than – but next time I’m like, I will definitely. Because that trail had a lot of uphills that were rocks all the way and you really had to work on your footwork. And I think that’s – for me, when it would get really technical, I would slow down a lot because I didn’t want to fall.
And I want to be more sure-footed next year so I want to practice running on those technical trails and actually run and not just say I’m going to walk this. I want to be able to run those harder sections. Because on that red loop – so the red loop, we kind of all agreed on the team, there were three loops. There was green, yellow, red. And the green was the shortest, yellow was the middle, and then red loop was almost eight miles, and it was the most techincal.
There were a lot of rocks, a lot of tree roots. Just a lot of very uneven terrain. But as we were out there on that trail, the ultrarunners that were doing the same race side by side with us were just whizzing by. They were like, full on running probably a six to eight-minute mile pace where we were like, oh my gosh, I need to slow down to walk because this is really treacherous. They were just like, blowing by us really, really fast.
And so I’m like, it’s totally possible to run these trails. I just don’t have those skills yet. So it kind of reframed my whole mind. I was like oh, I just need to build up those skills and so that’s kind of what I want to work on. So that was my takeaway is that trail running, it’s more than just getting used to being on trails. It’s an actual whole new skill set that just needs to be worked on. What did you think of the ultrarunners?
Jen: You always go in thinking like, oh, they’re going to be judging us or looking at us funny or be annoyed that they have to go around us. That kind of thing. And I was like, I wasn’t worried about that per say but I was conscious of it. And the total opposite was true. Yes, they were flying past us but they weren’t annoyed that we were in their way. They were way you go, you got this, you can do this.
Especially at night, the ones at night were like, keep going, you’re doing great. It just was really cool to see and hear them be so positive towards us because we were slow and we were in the way.
Jill: We were 100% the slowest team out there and we were getting passed left, right, and center. And I would say 95% of the people that passed, they would say on your left, good job, you’re doing great, you’ve got this. Every single one of them. I have never felt so – I don’t know, supported by other runners.
Jen: Yeah, and there is this sense at Ragnar that it’s sort of like an insider’s club. But I didn’t feel like an outsider. I felt like oh you’re here, you’re one of us.
Jill: Exactly. It’s not a hard club to join.
Jen: You just have to be really stinky.
Jill: Yeah, and actually, so let’s talk about that because we’re kind of like, talking about how amazing it was but oh my god, no shower from Thursday morning to Saturday night, and in between that time you’re sleeping outdoors in a tent twice, you’re running three times for a total of almost 16 miles, and you’re using the porta-potty.
Jen: And it’s humid. I sweated the entire time. I never stopped sweating.
Jill: I sweated through four hats.
Jen: Me too. I think I changed my underwear like, three times a day.
Jill: Yeah, exactly.
Jen: It was funny because after my first loop – so I had the first loop was the red loop. I had the hardest loop first and I didn’t really sleep well the night before and it was a brand-new experience. I was very nervous before I went out on the trail. So I had a lot of adrenaline.
And so after that I was exhausted and I’m like, I need to go lay down. And so it was like, I don’t know, four o clock. So like sun and heat and the tent was like a steamy sauna. I mean, it was just – but I’m like, I don’t care, I need to lay down. So I fell asleep for a little while and I woke up and I’m like god, what stinks in here? And I was like oh wait, that would be me. I smelled like a horse’s ass. I mean, it was awful.
Jill: Yeah. And we did get very good at using those shower wipes to bathe. And they were way more effective than I expected.
Jen: 100%. I totally agree.
Jill: I was using them like, twice a day. I’d finish a run, come back and wipe down and put on some dry clothes and then of course, it was just hot and humid so I’d sweat through all of that and then take another bath, put on my next set of running clothes, go out and run.
Jen: I mean, you’re literally brushing your teeth over a garbage can with your water bottle. I mean, it was not pretty but it was awesome. It was super badass.
Jill: It was. I was like, alright, if I can do this, I can do pretty much anything except sleep on the ground. I’m drawing the line there.
Jen: Ditto.
Jill: Yeah, but I think the being gross and sweaty, like, everybody was gross and sweaty so it wasn’t like – you know how sometimes after you finish a class at the gym and you’re like, I’m just going to stop at the grocery store on the way home before I take a shower. And everybody else is like, perfectly groomed and you’re just like a walking sweat ball and you feel really self-conscious. It wasn’t like that. Everybody else was equally disgusting. It was awesome.
Jen: I said at one point, I’m like, I’m just ready to stop smelling bodies and porta-potties. I want to smell soap and clean sheets.
Jill: And it’s so funny too because when we got to our hotel around six o clock on Saturday night, once we left the campsite, between six o clock Saturday night and 10 o clock Sunday night, I took three showers.
Jen: I showered at least twice.
Jill: I was like, I’m still not clean. I got to do it again.
Jen: I was putting soap up my nose. I’m like, I just want to clean everything.
Jill: Oh my god. And it wasn’t even that dirty or muddy. It was just like, yeah, it was just crazy. So what was the most challenging thing for you for the weekend?
Jen: It was more mentally hard than physically hard for me for sure. The marathon was the most physically hard thing I’ve ever done and that still stands. This was physically hard in a different way but it was definitely more mentally hard. And I think the waiting was the hardest part. Because I don’t sit around. I said that already. I don’t sit around and not do things, and so that waiting was – that was an exercise for me. What about you?
Jill: Yeah, I could see that. I can see that. I think for me was because we were running way behind schedule, when we got up on Saturday morning at 6am, we knew we weren’t going to make the cutoff. So we went down to talk to the race director but overnight, we had lost even more time because people were running that red loop in the middle of the night and they were really slowing down. Wisely so.
I’m not saying that they did anything wrong. Very wisely so. But we kind of had a plan in mind for how we were going to fix it and then we kind of had some additional circumstances. So I think for me, just wrapping my head around how are we going to get everybody through their loops.
I was feeling personally responsible for everybody to have a good time and feel like they accomplished what they set out to do. But also, you know, within the boundaries of the Ragnar – the requirements of the race too. So I think that for me was challenging because I was just really angsty and worried about how are we going to do this and it all worked out fine and everybody got to do their loops and so forth, but I think that was – so again, it was mental.
The physical – my body was very tired afterwards but nothing ached. I didn’t have any aches and pains. I was just kind of like, really fatigued. So physically it wasn’t the most challenging thing I’ve ever done but mentally it was. Yeah, I would agree. I think the mental challenge. Because it was so far out of everyone’s comfort zone.
Jen: I think too when you’re doing a team race, we’re so used to going and running our races and if we’re last it’s not big deal and if we’re out of the time it’s not big deal. But for this, it’s a totally different ballgame because other people are depending on you and the race has requirements. You can’t just finish when you finish. We had that part of it.
And thankfully they were so nice about it and accommodating and worked with us and got us all done. And they didn’t have to be. They could have been dicks about it and they weren’t. And…
Jill: Yeah, they could have said like, sorry, you’re not going to finish, that’s your problem. You should have trained better. And they did not. They were like, how can we get you all across the finish line?
Jen: Yeah, they were amazing. And so that really meant a lot to me because I wanted everybody to be able to do what they set out to do and to do those loops.
Jill: Yeah, because everybody that signed up on this team wanted an adventure, wanted to step outside their comfort zone. But then I also was like, yeah, but I don’t want them to – I’m not a very nurturing person but when it comes to that, I was like, I don’t want anybody to fail on this adventure because I want them to have good memories. And I know I can’t manage other people’s feelings for them but I certainly tried.
Jen: Well and I think I also started challenging for me – the people who did get hurt, I just felt so bad. I didn’t want them to be hurt and I didn’t want them to feel bad about being hurt and to be sore. So that was – the people who fell and got hurt, that was hard for me too.
Jill: Yeah, agreed. Even through all of that, it was so amazing.
Jen: It really was. And just the camaraderie of all of us being together and I mean, these are women who – some of us we’ve never met in person before and I mean, this is like, to be thrown into an “adverse” situation with people that you don’t actually really know that well, that’s also an adventure. And everybody was amazing and like, there was no drama and it was fun and we laughed our asses off. It just was like – I left there with 15 sisters.
Jill: Seriously like, these are strangers sharing tents. Strangers sleeping in the same tent.
Jen: Like, two feet apart.
Jill: That’s a big leap of faith for sure. So can we talk about the bagels?
Jen: I’m always happy to talk about bagels.
Jill: Jen introduced me to a whole new way of preparing bagels that has changed everything and I’m like, I’m going to throw my toaster out and buy a cast iron skillet. So explain what you did with the bagels and why it’s so amazing.
Jen: Well, so I brought a camp stove because we couldn’t cook over open fire and they provided dinner for us Friday night but we had to get our own meals for the rest of the time. So they did have food trucks there and stuff but we wanted to provide meals for everybody.
So I bought stuff to kind of cook the whole time too. So one of the things I bought was bagels and we didn’t obviously have a toaster and so I brought my cast iron skillet. And so I buttered the bagels and then I griddled them in the skillet so they got toasty and buttery and truly, anything cooked in a cast iron skillet just tastes better anyway.
But they sort of had that little bit of char of them but they were nice and toasty and buttery and like, everyone was like, this is the best bagel. I mean, we were all starving too so that could have been it too, but everyone was like, these are the best bagels I ever had in my life.
Jill: They were so good.
Jen: Yeah, and I baked potatoes the night before we left and I brought them there cold and then I put them in a cast iron dutch oven and put that no the camp stove, so it created a little oven. So we had baked potatoes. And when I had started them, one of the guys, the concierge guys was like, you’re trying to bake potatoes in a cast iron dutch oven? He’s like, those are going to be ready on Saturday. I’m like, hello, I baked them last night, I’m just heating them up. I wasn’t born yesterday.
Jill: That is so funny. But they came out really well. We’re totally going to do that again for next year’s race I think, which by the way, those of you that are listening, we are 100% going back and doing the exact same race again. So Jen, what do you think we should do different next time?
Jen: I think that we should for sure start training earlier. I think that’s a big part of it.
Jill: I’m thinking January.
Jen: For sure. I think that’s a big part of it. I would do the food a little bit differently next time. I brought way too much snacky stuff. I would bring more substantive stuff. The thing that I did do right with the food was bring actual cream for the coffee because they had powdered creamer so everybody was really happy with the cream for the coffee. So I think that would be part of it.
And I think I kind of want to party Thursday night too. I’m not going to get drunk obviously or drink, but now that I know what to expect, I think I could have more fun. I was very serious and in my head and preparing for the runs, but I think for sure I could have more fun next time and have some stuff to do while we’re waiting. Like cards and games and stuff because that waiting was kind of brutal.
Jill: And I think like, next year people should be assigned cheer zones too. Because one of the things that I think – if you were doing a leg in the middle of the night and you came back, the person that was taking the bib from you was waiting for you but there was nobody there in the finisher shoot to cheer for you like there was during the day.
So I think we’re going to have to just get that set up so there’s always – so nobody comes back – because when you finish, you hand the bib over and then they take off and then you’re just standing there by yourself with your thumb up your ass like okay, I guess I go back to bed now. So I want to make sure that we have people there to cheer in the new people. I think that’ll be fun.
What else? I think when we do training, we’re going to add in very specific strength training exercises to support trail running because that’s like, a whole new level of stability. And I think strong ankles are important. What’s even more important to work your gluteus medius and the outsides of your legs and so forth.
Jen: And core for balance.
Jill: Yeah, so we’re definitely going to do really up the strength training that we do with everyone for next year. I think we’re going to have an awards ceremony next year. What do you think about that?
Jen: Oh for sure. Because I mean, we had MVPs, we had the best sleeper, we had all these great awards that we could have given out and so yeah, knowing that now, we could be…
Jill: We could still give them out. We should totally still give them out. Let’s do that. So we had two teams. Team one was the Ragnar Rebels and team two was the Corgis in the Forest. And LD just basically whipped up beautiful logos for each of our teams and made all these stickers, and then Amanda made signs and Julie made stickers and temporary tattoos. And so it was kind of like, I don’t know, we just had so much creativity on the team and so forth, so I think we need to like, we can totally do…
Jen: If there’s a zombie apocalypse, these are the people I want in my corner. These people could rule the world, I’m telling you.
Jill: 100%.
Jen: I can make a good bagel but that’s about as far as my skill set goes.
Jill: I can talk really loud. I can scare the zombies off that way like hey, get away from there. That’ll be my contribution.
Jen: Maybe I’d stink so bad that I’d scare them off.
Jill: There you go. There’s that. So what was easier than expected?
Jen: I think the actual physicality of it was easier than expected. I knew it was going to be hard, but it wasn’t as physically hard as I thought it was going to be. And I was okay-trained. I wasn’t as well trained as I would have liked to have been, but I think that part of it was surprising actually. I was for sure sore and I for sure did a lot of miles, but the runs were not as physically taxing as I thought they were going to be.
Jill: Yeah, agreed. I feel the same way. I kind of expected to feel a little broken afterwards and I think my brain was broken. I’m still a little bit foggy and I think it was because of sleep deprivation. That one night, Friday night, basically each of us only slept a couple hours because between running legs in the middle of the night and then we had an injury that we had to attend to and it just – we got a couple hours sleep then we had to be up at six in the morning to talk to the race director. But I was surprised at how easy it was to run on no sleep.
Jen: Yes, me too.
Jill: Because I got maybe 30 minutes of sleep in between my Friday morning leg and my middle of the night Friday leg, which was at one in the morning. I got maybe 30 minutes of sleep. I found it super easy to do that run. And then got a couple of hours sleep after that, then got up, and we did a whole bunch of stuff and then later that morning I was out doing the eight-mile leg and I was like, I have plenty of energy. That blew my mind how much energy I had.
Jen: Me too. Because I’m such a sleeper too that I’m tragic when I don’t get enough sleep, and so I’ve realized that’s a thought and that’s mental because I think between Thursday night and Saturday, I think I had a total of probably maybe seven or eight hours of sleep total, if that.
Jill: Yeah exactly. Same here. Yeah, and we were functioning pretty well. And it wasn’t until we got to the hotel on Saturday night and it was like, all of a sudden everything else – there were no more responsibilities and both of us were like…
Jen: And then I downed that margarita, then I was really out.
Jill: Yeah. I could not believe how fast I fell asleep like after that dinner. I went up, laid down, and was just, that was it. That was the end of it. And I woke up the next day like…
Jen: I didn’t even move positions. I woke up in the same position I fell asleep in.
Jill: Isn’t that funny? So I think I’m feeling the effects of sleep deprivation a couple days later, so that’s a real thing, but in the moment my body just showed up and performed beautifully. I was kind of like, way to go, body.
Jen: I was. I was like, proud of my brain and I was proud of my body. I was like, I may not look like those ultrarunners but I am as equally badass as they are.
Jill: Yeah, we did those fucking miles. Every single step of them. We did them so that was pretty awesome. So there’s one story that I think we should share, and this occurred after the race at the hotel. Do you want to tell that story? Because it was a good one.
Jen: Yeah, I love this story. So we got to the hotel and we were going into the elevator. So I ran into this older gentleman. There were two older gentlemen and we’d come into the hotel disgusting. We’re sweaty and gross and dirty and stinky with all of our shit. And these two older gentlemen were coming out of the elevator and I was going in.
And he was sweet. He was like, where are you coming from? And I said oh, we just did this race and he kind of didn’t understand what I was saying. And we went up to the room and we came back down and we were done ordering our food and he was in the restaurant too.
And he came up to the counter and we kind of started talking about the race again. He’s like, so you ran it? You ran the race. I was like yeah, it was a race. We were running. He’s like, but you ran it? I was like yeah. He’s like, well you sure don’t look like runners.
And I was like yeah, no, we actually ran it. Maybe we’re a little slower but we did. He was like well, good for you. He was kind of shocked and after we sat down I said to you, I said you know, this really is a testament to the mental work that we do because in the past if somebody would have said that to me, I would have been like, offended and embarrassed and felt shameful and it would have taken away from the experience that we just had at the Ragnar.
And I would have thought about that probably more than I would have thought about the race, but it didn’t even affect me. I was like, hell yeah we ran it. And you said something like, you can’t judge a book by its cover or was that what you said? I can’t remember.
Jill: I said not all runners look the same or something like that.
Jen: And he was super sweet. He wasn’t being a dick. He just was like, you know, he was just like, genuinely surprised.
Jill: Yeah, he was just confused, that’s all.
Jen: Yeah. And so we put him straight and he was sweet as pie and it didn’t even faze me. But in the past, it totally would have fazed me and that would have tainted the experience that I would have had. I would have been like, oh, it was great except for that guy who made me feel bad. Like, totally over my head and he was cute as pie and I was like whatever. So that was actually a very profound moment for me around the mental training that we did to work up to this.
Jill: Right, because most people would be like oh, he was such a dick, how dare he say that. Like no, he just said words. When you assume somebody is saying oh, you don’t look like a runner that they’re trying to insult you, of course you’re going to feel insulted. But he was just like oh.
He was making an observation from how his brain works and we set him – and we explained, and now he’s going to go and he’s going to be like, I saw these fat girls and they can run. I didn’t know that that was possible. This is amazing. Who knows who he’s going to tell? And yeah, so I’m…
Jen: It was a big moment for me. It was very – there are certain times in your life when the universe shows you a picture of your progress and that was one of those moments for me. I was like, damn, that was a big deal.
Jill: That’s so awesome.
Jen: It was super awesome.
Jill: So wow. Well, we can go on for hours talking about this but I want to let people know that we are doing this race again next year and it is going to sell out fast because we don’t have unlimited teams. But if you want to join in the Ragnar fun next year, you can join now.
You can sign up for the team now. The training starts in January but you got to reserve your spot now. If you go to notyouraveragerunner.com/ragnar, all the information on how to sign up is there and you can be a part of this most awesome and amazing team, and maybe who knows what award you’ll get next year. Maybe you’ll get cutest corgi butt award because somebody is getting that award this year.
Jen: 100%. And honestly, I just can’t say enough about the women on our team. And I know I’ve kind of gushed about them but just amazing feats of badassery and kindness and compassion and fun and – I mean, this group of women could rule the world, truly. Our group should not be called Run Your Best Life. It should be called Women Run the World because this group could for sure – I said I want to be on your team always. Amazing, amazing people.
Jill: Yeah, for sure. And really diverse in every possible way. The only thing we all had in common was that we’re runners and that we’re female. Everything else was super diverse. And just gelled really well. And most of these women didn’t know each other beforehand.
What they all do have in common is they work on their minds. They do a lot of mindset work and they’re all just kind of loving, compassionate people, and that was really kind of all you need for a great team.
Jen: It was a blast.
Jill: I am so excited. I cannot wait to do this again. I already started looking up at like, ones that are closer to me but they all look a lot harder. I’m just like, let’s just do the Wisconsin one again.
Jen: I actually found – because I really want to keep trail running and winter is coming, so I actually found a race series in my area and it’s three races. The first one is in January, the second one is in February, the third one is in March. And they’re all trail races and the first one’s a 5K, the second one’s an 8K, and the third one’s a 10K.
And so I was like, hell yeah, I’m signing up. It’s like, $75. It’s super cheap to sign up for all three races. I’m like, that’s my next goal. So that’s what I’m signing up for this week.
Jill: I love this. This has spawned a whole new set of running goals for you.
Jen: 100%.
Jill: Same here. Same here. I’m going to try camping that’s not even glamping. I’m going to try actual camping.
Jen: I’m not going to go that far.
Jill: Well, Andy and I are negotiating the terms right now.
Jen: Best of luck to you.
Jill: But we’re going hiking this weekend too. He’s like hey, you want to go hiking this weekend? I’m like fuck yeah, of course I do. Now I just want to be in the woods all the time.
Jen: Oh, and you know what else? When I got home, I killed a spider in the house and didn’t scream because you know, I’m outdoorsy now.
Jill: Why would you scream before if there was a spider? Because I’m terrified of spiders. And I would try to kill a spider and I would scream.
Jill: But they’re so small.
Jen: No. Not the spiders we have here.
Jill: Seriously, how big are they?
Jen: It’s like their body is the size of like, a nickle.
Jill: You get that that’s pretty small.
Jen: No it isn’t. Body? Just the body? Not including the legs.
Jill: Yeah, but you can step on them and you have all the power.
Jen: Not when they’re on the ceiling you can’t. They can fall on you, they could jump at you. But I killed it and I didn’t scream because I am now outdoorsy.
Jill: You’re outdoorsy now. Okay. I love this. Alright, well I didn’t know you were afraid of spiders.
Jen: I’m afraid of all bugs.
Jill: Did I show you the frog that was in our tent?
Jen: No, thank god.
Jill: I took a picture of it. I’ll send it to you. When I came back from my green loop in the middle of the night, there was a frog on the wall of the tent. I took a picture of it. And when I woke up it was gone so I don’t know.
Jen: Great. It’s probably still in my sleeping bag.
Jill: It was a tiny little frog. He was so cute. I was like hi, and then I went to sleep. And I was like, I don’t care if you crawl in with me. I’m going to sleep. I didn’t care. I was that tired. Anyway, alright, so if you want to join us next year and have frogs in your sleeping bag and get an award for best corgi butt, and run in the trails and figure out what you’re made of, which is probably going to be way more than you thought, and see a lot of hot ultrarunners like, just galloping through the forest.
And what blew my mind is you’d be running and you could hear them coming. And not the bushes rustling but you could hear the pounding on the ground. It was like, their footsteps were very solid. They were not corgi running at all. That was so fun.
Anyway, so you can do that, you can join us. Notyouraveragerunner.com/ragnar. Sign up soon of course because the teams are going to fill up fast. We only have two teams. That’s me and Jen and 14 other runners and that’s it. And last time it sold out in I think less than a week. It was definitely less than a week. We sold 12 of the 14 spots in an hour. Then we had two more people sign up later. So you better sign up soon. Anywho, that’s it for this podcast.
Jen: I’m going back to sleep.
Jill: I know, me too. I feel like I can’t get enough sleep now.
Jen: Or food. Man, I’ve been eating my face off.
Jill: So good. Alright, thanks for listening rebels and I’ll talk to you later Jen.
Jen: See you later.
Jill: Go get some sleep.
Jen: Yeah, you too. Bye.
Jill: Bye.
Thanks for listening to this episode of The Not Your Average Runner Podcast. If you liked what you heard and want more, head over to www.notyouraveragerunner.com to download your free one week jumpstart plan and get started running today.
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