Ragnar Race Re-Cap / OUC

The Ragnar race last month was a great experience and is probably something I would want to do again. I ended up averaging 8min/miles throughout my legs which was a journey into the unknown. I'd never ran in the middle of the night, rarely in the middle of the day, and certainly never with only 8 or 9 hours of break in-between 6.5+ mile runs.

My first leg was in a populated area near Zephyrhills. There was a ton of construction and the first couple of miles totally sucked. I was literally running on the side of the road in busy intersections and also ran across an I-75 off-ramp exit. The last few miles were more in a country stretch with the high noon heat. I ended up averaging 8 minute miles during this run and it was a lot more difficult then I had thought. The heat and bad terrain combined to make it seem more like a 10 mile run when it was just under 7.

My 2nd leg was at 1am in Clermont, Florida, with plenty of hills. It was a little spooky running with a night lamp on my head in the middle of the night, but it was also very cool because 2 miles of the run were along Lake Miniola. Despite the hills this ended up being my fastest run as I ended up doing it in 7:45min/miles. Most of the run was in the West Orange Trail in heavily wooded areas that I had run before during my marathon training.

My 3rd and final leg was an 8-mile straight shot at Noon the next day on some pretty tired legs. I ended up averaging 8:10min/miles on this leg and was elated to be done. It was the first time that I had to run towards an infinite horizon that seemed endless. When I saw the exchange up ahead it seemed as if it was getting bigger so slowly that it would never happen. I've come to the conclusion that I actually like the bends and turns because I do not get so fixated on the distance left.

Welp, tomorrow is the OUC Half-Marathon. It's the race I was training for, and it was the reason I did the Ragnar race as a final prep. I'm floating around 200 lbs, so I am about 10 lbs heavier than I would like to be - but I have been doing a lot of weight training the last 6 months. Regardless I am still aiming to do run faster than an 8-min mile half-marathon (1 hour 44min 48sec). As of right now it looks like my biggest obstacle in doing it is the weather. It has been raining consistently over the past day and the forecast is cold and wet for tomorrow's race time. This should be interesting.....