Vans 1&2 had now finished the first 76 miles of the 188 mile relay in 11 hours and 37 minutes – approximately the time it took me to finish many of my Ironman races. By all rights, we should now be taking a shower, and heading down to the finish line to cheer on the stragglers fighting to beat the 17 hour clock.
Instead, we encountered the start of Ragnar’s unique set of challenges. With the Vans leapfrogging each other, we had about 5 hours to get some rest, and get ourselves (or at least our next runner) to the next Grand Exchange, at the Gypsu, Rec Center. This meant we’d have to figure out how long it would take Van 1’s runners to cover the six legs totaling 31 miles – and we had no real idea how fast they would each go, or how they might fare running in the dark.
“Let’s see, @ 10 minutes a mile, that would be 314 minutes, or 5 hours, 14 minutes, putting them @ the Rec Center @ 2:21,” I ventured.
“How fast did they get through the first segment?” someone else chimed in – oh boy, now we have to be data driven!
“Well, assuming they actually started @ 9:30” – we neglected to ask Van 1 if they had started on time – “they went 40 miles in 6:27.”
Scott is apparently a math savant, as he immediately noted that was less than ten minutes a mile.
“… And part of their run was uphill. This next section is all basically a gentle downhill. So maybe 9:30 a mile?”
“Let’s call it 9:45, and see what that comes out to,” Scott responded.
“OK, that’s 306 minutes. And 9:30 would be 7 minutes shorter, so that’s getting closer to 2 AM. And we’ve got to be sure to be there in time, or they’ll be very upset, wanting to get rest and all.”
Steph, who’d had to longest rest since her run, sagely said, “Kurt, why don’t you text Jan” – Jan, his wife, was the nominal leader in the other van – “and find out when they think they’ll be there.”
When 1:45 – 2 came back, we decided we’d triangulated enough, and besides, we were just pulling up to Carrie’s, where her husband and three young sons were delighted to see us and feed us thin crust pizza. Instead of getting to sleep immediately, I pumped in the calories, and settled on the rendevous plan.
Steph, as the first runner, and I would as stealthily as possible (given the knowledge that the boys had recently seen a bear along the river just outside their house at night) exit the house, drive the mile to the Rec Center, and play tag once again with Van 1. Then I’d drive back, presumably waking everyone else up @ about 2:15 (giving them a chance for maybe 3.5 hours of sleep), and off we’d go into the night.
The plan worked perfectly, except for two things: I was allergic to something in the bed where I tried to rest, so got only one hour of true sleep, and speedy Aaron rolls up @ 1:57 AM, arriving at the checkpoint about 10 seconds before Steph and I appeared. I don’t think he noticed, as he called out his number, I hollered back, and we probably didn’t lose any time at all.
While everyone else got up, I tried to gather my things and pack the van. I could find neither my nylon beanie (necessary for the 44F temps we now encountered), nor my headlamp. This necessitated a return trip to Carrie’s, discovering that we’d left nothing behind, and driving the 7 miles back to the next exchange, where we once again waited 15 minutes, in the dark, and cold, and progessing brain fuzzies, to cheer Josh off into Glenwood Canyon. At this point, we would not be able to drive along and holler encouragement to our runners, who were down on the bike path next to the Colorado River, below the highway.
At this point, each of the legs were mercifully “short”, 3-4 miles. Since each runner had to cool down, use the rest room, and get re-dressed, we had barely enough time to get from one exchange to another. As for the runners, they were enduring their own exhilarating terror, trusting the bike path would not suddenly deposit them into the broiling frothy river, or that a bear would not find a chase to his liking.
This being the deep part of the night – 2-6 AM – and all of us operating on a combined total of maybe 15 hours of sleep, we were starting to think a little more slowly. Lucky for us, Carrie and I both know Glenwood Canyon very well from years of running and biking, to say nothing of driving, in there.
Not so fortunate was one of the teams, dressed in tutus. Scott and I were waiting for Carrie to hand off to him. Tutu girl (I really found nothing at all unusual to be chatting with someone dressed in a pink leotard, frilly pink crinoline surrounding her hips, and antennae-like sparkly pointers on the top of a little girls headband, at 4 AM in an I-70 rest stop) was moaning about how her runner seemed to be late.
This particular section of the Canyon freeway is so narrow, that entrances and exits to the rest stops can only be on one side of the road. So getting from Point A to B is sometimes not a direct route. We knew this, of course, but apparently her team did not. Their van had exited at the proper place, but didn’t realise they had to backtrack now, back through the tunnel, to the previous rest stop, for that exchange.
It literally took six of us to figure out what her mistake had been, such was the fog encircling most of our thought processes. Apparently, it was that time of night, because as Carrie came running up, neither Scott nor I saw her (she was dressed all in black, and it was rather dark outside), and she forget (a) who the next runner was and (b) what our team name and number were.
So she held up the bracelet, looked all around, and started hollering, “Carrie! Carrie!”
That seemed to wake us up. I pushed Scott towards her, reminding him about the hill at the end of his run. I got back to the van, and headed to No Name Rest Stop. From there, my run would finish along the river, over the traffic, along the freeway, then through town in the most god-awful complicated route along the busiest road in Glenwood, when a much smoother option existed one block north by the Hot Springs pool, bypassing all the crosswalks and traffic lights, and thus danger.
Finally, I got to cross the River, and ran along the Roaring Fork for a mile up to the High School, to once again hand off to Summer. Six kills, no killed. And as Jan escorted me to the Vans, the sky was just beginning to turn from inky black to the slightest lemony crimson – we’d made it through the night.
(To be continued/concluded)