Reading all the blog postings, I'm surprised how much Van 1 was eating better than us. They had spaghetti (or was it Lasagna? whatever the food we didn't even get to see) and saw a picture of eating Subway and ice-cream. The only real food we had was at the church - a bowl of chili for me. (BTW, Bill's turkey sandwich was pathetic. Just hamburger buns and one thin slice of turkey meat!) After all that, I was so sad to find out that my weight hasn't changed a bit!!!
Considering this was my first ever race, I didn't try to accomplish too much. I picked the easiest position and *tried* to train around it. Didn't even look at what other courses look like. Of course didn't think about any weather/temperature conditions. When Bryan asked me if I could switch my position with 8th, I only looked at the distance and thought I could do it.
First 5.6mile leg around 3pm was awful. The 1600ft height + over 90 degrees heat just overwhelmed me. (was that Lindsey who mentioned about V shaped graph? Mine was just like that) At some point, I felt dizzy and almost passed out. I didn't want to give up during my first race, first leg and remembered Bryan's advice. Don't try to run up the hill. I started power walking. The downhill was much better, although it looks like I'm gonna loose 2 toe nails by thumping my feet all the way down.
The second leg was just 5 miles and I ran after 3AM. Although I didn't have much people running around me it wasn't too scary. The full moon was helpful and the team supports along the way was priceless! I walked up several hills but I still made it in pretty good time.
I wasn't too concerned about the 6.1 mile third leg until I started. Compare to the first 2 legs, it looked pretty flat and lower elevation and it was mostly in the nice trail. Didn't realize stopping for red lights would effect me so much (lack of experience, never trained in the city, I mostly trained on a treadmill!!) There were around 7~8 roads I had to cross, some where more than 2 at once. I never got to the point my legs felt comfortable.
When the volunteer at a water station told me I've only made a half way thru I almost wanted to cry. I knew the last 3 miles were slight uphill and I was pretty exhausted already. The only thought I had was this is it, this is IT!
Despite all these pain points the finale was totally worth it. The beautiful sunset in National harbor and the last run on uphill (piece of cake now) to the final point with Catherine and the heavy Ragnar medal!!!
It's not just the personal accomplishment that makes me so glad, but the new friendships I gained during this race was really what I value the most. I didn't know about Bill, Chase and Susan before (never met them before in the office) and I knew Bryan but never talked to him personally. However now we became great friends with the fact we were in the same team and shared the Van for 2 days!
Lastly, I specially would like to thank Bryan for not only running all those legs for the team but also supporting the whole team endlessly. His state of the art van was really nice and comfortable and everything he prepared for the team (including chairs and air mattresses) was really really helpful.
As soon as I got up this morning I felt like I needed to get ready (emotionally) for the 4th leg. Probably by seeing Bryan running so many legs. Just like Kendra mentioned below, I'm happy I made it, but sad it's over. It was such a great experience! Thanks for the opportunity and great support from the team!!
-- Sunhee
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