Ragnar del Sol Leg Two

After successfully completing our first set of legs and enjoying some down time, we got ourselves up and running again around 9 pm.  Our first runner was off for a little more than 4 miles before handing off to me.  Fatigue was setting in rapidly.  Normally I go to bed around 9pm so staying up past 9pm to go for a 6 mile run was not necessarily something that I was looking forward too.  I told my team that I would either run this leg in less than 55 minutes or more than 65 depending on how much the fatigue affected me.  Early in my run, I got stopped at several stoplights which slowed me down but I was able to loosen up and go with the flow as the night air started to wake me up.  I didn’t think I would get many “kills” on this run because of how tired I was, but I failed to consider that others were equally tired.  Before long, I started knocking people off and I picked up speed.  There was something invigorating and motivating the “kills” I was getting.  As it turned out, my inner beast was unleashed.  Bring on the competition!

Our culture has a habit of demonizing competition.  For example, kids sports have a tendency to focus on the “Everyone's a Winner” mentality.  We say that we want all kids to be winners because we believe that losing is a bad thing.  And as adults, how often do we avoid trying new things because we are scared we will fail?  Yet, how often do we learn anything or grow from winning?  Winning is a valuable reward for hard work and embracing loss or failure with the same vigor is a lot harder.  But accepting the risk of failure and loss itself is a mountain worth conquering and often leads to far greater rewards than any win.

In running, I am often afraid of failure.  While I excel at many things, oddly, running is not a natural talent of mine.  Still I am drawn to it like a moth to a flame.  I love running and all that it has given me in my life.  Unfortunately for me though, I frequently hold back because I don’t want to fail.  I will say things like “I just run for fun” or I tell people I am so slow, to not wait up for me.  I run alone so that I am not embarrassed about my lack of speed.   So imagine my surprise when I tried to push a little on this leg and found that the risk paid off and I actually enjoyed the competitive spirit.

Along with 9 “kills”, I killed the distance in under 54 minutes.  The only downside is that I was within 10 feet of getting a 10th kill, but couldn’t quite make up the distance in time.  Oh well.  I still rack this up as a success!!  Once the adrenaline wore off, the fatigue crashed over me.  I changed clothes to avoid the “we are all crowded in a van stink” and passed out in the back seat.   While I am guessing that I was not the only runner to venture into the unknown, our last runner was Mr. Tutu and he is never one to fear his limits and therefore is able exceed expectations time and again.  Not surprisingly, he wrapped up his run with a fabulous time.   What an inspiration our whole team is turning out to be as we strive to our strongest and most fabulous!!

We drove to the next exchange and we all crashed.  We were even too tired to walk to the open grassy area set aside for us to sleep.  With only 4 hours until our next and last set of legs, we all did our best to squeeze out every inch of sleep we could.   Leg 2 completed, Leg 3 here we come.  May this last leg offer one more chance to embrace our Inner Wild.