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Ragnar relay Colorado - UPDATE (pneumonia!)
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Some women in my neighborhood are organizing a team to run the Colorado Ragnar rely. Each runner of a 10-12 person team runs 3-4 legs of between 3-8 miles each over a 24 hour period. It's in the mountains, so some legs will be challenging. The race is in two months. I have been maintaining bare minimum fitness over the last few months, running less than 20 miles a week. My past racing experience includes 4 marathons, numerous halfs and other shorter distances. Is two months enough to prepare? I feel like it would be, although some pain would be involved. I've never done a race like this, though, and don't really know how my body will react. Would I put the team at risk of not finishing if I join? I really want to do this, but not if I'm not going to be able to finish.

UPDATE: Training was going great until about 10 days ago when I got sick. Last Friday, I was diagnosed with pneumonia and put on antibiotics. I am feeling much better, but still have a pretty significant cough. I wake up in the morning feeling okay, but the cough gets worse as the day progresses. I ran 2 very easy miles on my treadmill this morning and it felt okay. I am going to try 3 miles outside tomorrow morning. I have no idea how realistic it is to think I can recover enough to run 7/4/6 in the mountains in less than three weeks from now. My base was not great and I know I've lost fitness. I don't want to let my team down, but I also don't want to hurt myself or wait to long too long them know they should get a sub. We are all racing for fun and not time. Any advice?
Last edited by: AmyCO: Jul 21, 14 19:00
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Re: Ragnar relay Colorado - can I keep up? [AmyCO] [ In reply to ]
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Trust me, as one who has "been there, done that" on less training than I'm willing to admit here, that you will be fine! Don't let your present training get in the way of future fun! Your muscle memory will take over and you will figure out a way to finish your legs and support your team. Just do it ;-)

DFL > DNF > DNS
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Re: Ragnar relay Colorado - can I keep up? [AmyCO] [ In reply to ]
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If you really want to do this, then put in the work over the next two months and get out there. Procrastination then panic is my most effective motivator.

The way I personally would handle this is write up my training schedule, put it in my calendar, then get to work.

Go into it understanding you won't set any land speed efforts and it will be hard but do it for fun and to satisfy your desire to do it. Some of my best race performances come from thinking I won't be great so I relax and take the day as it comes.

Have a great time!

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Jen

"In order to keep a true perspective on one's importance, everyone should have a dog that worships him and a cat that will ignore him." - Dereke Bruce
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Re: Ragnar relay Colorado - can I keep up? [AmyCO] [ In reply to ]
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I did Ragnar Key West on about 15-20 miles a week, mostly 3ish mile runs because I was injured. I surprised myself by how well I ran. It wasn't super fast, but faster than I thought I could.

I'd put in a day of running twice each week if you can. My legs were 9 miles, 6.2 miles, 1.6 miles. The first was crazy hot and we had a miscommunication about aid stations (there aren't any unless it's a no van support section) so my team didn't provide me water until mile 8. The 6.2 miles was in the middle of the night and it was awesome. The 1.6 miles sucked because it was once again hot, I was tired and it was short so I ran fast.

The whole thing was a blast.
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Re: Ragnar relay Colorado - can I keep up? [JenSw] [ In reply to ]
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I'm working on the training plan now!
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Re: Ragnar relay Colorado - can I keep up? [AmyCO] [ In reply to ]
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I've never done the CO one, but I've done 3 ragnars. One I did after nothing but pool running following a broken foot (yes, I was cleared, and yes...I had one of the shorter ones total). As for the others, my normal weekly mileage never gets to 20 (3 dpw running), and I was fine for both.

There will be tons of folks who do it and don't run at all, ever. You'll be fine.


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Re: Ragnar relay Colorado - can I keep up? [mmrocker13] [ In reply to ]
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Definitely do it Amy. Ragnars are a blast, and you will learn more about your van mates than....you may want to! Really, I've made wonderful friends and it is a great experience.
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Re: Ragnar relay Colorado - can I keep up? [AmyCO] [ In reply to ]
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I've done 4 relays like this, 24-hour, 36, 48, and a long road relay which ended up at 54 hours.. it's surprisingly not as hard as you might think. With two months of decent training, 30mpw+, you'll be in perfectly good shape for Ragnar. Also, the relays are great fun, make running a team sport of sorts, which is kinda nice sometimes.
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Re: Ragnar relay Colorado - UPDATE (pneumonia!) [AmyCO] [ In reply to ]
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Bump
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Re: Ragnar relay Colorado - UPDATE (pneumonia!) [AmyCO] [ In reply to ]
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You got pneumonia? Please say it isn't so....

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Jen

"In order to keep a true perspective on one's importance, everyone should have a dog that worships him and a cat that will ignore him." - Dereke Bruce
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Re: Ragnar relay Colorado - UPDATE (pneumonia!) [JenSw] [ In reply to ]
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Yup (see update above). I woke up this morning not feeling great after so much coughing last night. I'm going to wait until tomorrow to do the 3. Sooooo frustrating.
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Re: Ragnar relay Colorado - UPDATE (pneumonia!) [AmyCO] [ In reply to ]
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How are you doing? I live in Manitou and just filled in at the last minute for a friend's EPIC relay team for an injured runner last week (Canon City to Crested Butte)... They didn't know me and I only knew one of them so I did 2.5, 2.5, 4.5 (the shortest legs). I think the time is plenty to prepare. I had never run a relay like that before but I had a blast. Since my legs were so short, I ran each like its own race... I rarely run more than 20mi/week and have never done the marathon (pikes peak ascent 4x and other shorter mountain races equivalent to a flat marathon though). I wasn't the slowest or the fastest on my team... few teams build for speed alone. Most have a variety of abilities. We had runners between 7:00 pace and 11:00 pace with average around 8:30. Its the week before the Ascent so not ideal, but if there's a team that needs an emergency runner, I can do it. Good luck!



"When the going gets tough, get going!"
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Re: Ragnar relay Colorado - UPDATE (pneumonia!) [catwood] [ In reply to ]
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I'm feeling much better and am slowly getting back on the road. Doc prescribed an inhaler and low grade steroids, so that's really helped. I ran 8 miles easy yesterday and felt good. I think I'm going to be fine for the race; won't be breaking any land speed records, but will certainly make it through.

A friend of mine saw the signs for the EPIC relay and said there were some seriously steep sections. Good luck with the Ascent!
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Re: Ragnar relay Colorado - UPDATE (pneumonia!) [AmyCO] [ In reply to ]
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Typically, with minimal training, you can find it in you to pull off amazing stuff on race day. "Amazing" meaning, completion. These guys put to gether a gear list, that is helpful. http://www.orangemud.com/pages/ragnar_gearlist Good luck you should be fine.
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Re: Ragnar relay Colorado - UPDATE (pneumonia!) [AmyCO] [ In reply to ]
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My team ran the Ragnar relay last weekend and it was awesome. My legs were relatively easy 6/4/5 and I experienced no soreness or trouble on the runs. The last run was very hilly and I was undertrained for that, but the spectacular scenery more than made up for it. We plan to run again next year, and I've told them I'll definitely be taking on more challenging runs.
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Re: Ragnar relay Colorado - UPDATE (pneumonia!) [AmyCO] [ In reply to ]
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Congratulations!! That's awesome that it all came together in the end & you got to do it.
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