The Finish

The finish this year was in a park across the river from the Minneapolis skyline. I left Preston somewhere around 5am and arrived there about an hour later. At that time the sky was clear and the air still. This photo captures the view early Saturday morning.



Setting up both start and finish is a huge undertaking, and Tanner has taken the lead in doing both at all of our events. Since Dominique joined us this summer, she has taken responsibility for handling a lot of the detail. She is pictured here in her black Ragnar shirt in front of race headquarters, after we had set up and before runners arrived. Among other things, Dominique arranged for the beer garden and generally eliminates a lot of worries for the rest of us. Besides Dan, the other full-time member of our team is Corissa, who started early this year as an intern while finishing up at the University of Utah. During the race she works with course managers to make sure all exchanges are set up, and that the course is marked properly. Dan follows up to double check course set up, and to deal with bottlenecks or problems during the race, such as, for example, the rerouting necessitated by the aforementioned gunman.




By midday, the finish area was a hive of activity with bands playing, runners eating, drinking and sampling merchandising, and teams arriving at the finish with increasing frequency. This is a shot of the finish area in full swing.

I started the day announcing teams at the finish. The wind gradually picked up, blowing over a couple of our flag banners. The base of the standards should be filled with water, but whoever set them up forgot to fill two of them. A runner temporarily solved the problem by anchoring the standards with rocks. Dan thought that looked pretty tacky so asked me to find a hose and fill the bases with water. I located the hose draped over a retaining wall near the tent showers. Leaning over to pull up the hose I somehow lost my balance and fell at least four feet to the concrete below where a made a perfect three point landing - left hand, forehead and knee. I got up dazed, seeing stars, and a runner came over and escorted me to the first aid tent. There Pat Yoon, an orthopedic surgeon helping out as a volunteer, examined my finger and dressed cuts on my nose, elbow, hand and knee. I learned a few days later that I broke the little finger of my left hand during the fall. So far as I know, this is the worst injury anyone has suffered in any of our events.
Chalk it up to fatigue and old age.



Given that everyone is pretty hammered by the end of the race, one of our challenges has been to create a celebratory party atmosphere at the finish and have a good turnout at the awards ceremony. Besides the beer garden and bands, we served barbeque at the finish most of the day. A lot of runners stuck around, and we even saw many families, spouses and children, joining runners at the finish. This shot is of the overall winner, the crossTrainers, most of whom ran for Martin Luther College. The wives of two members of the team volunteered at the finish, and kept me entertained all morning.



We give personality awards to teams and volunteers who best capture the spirit of the race, based on the votes of race participants. Here again are the WHORs, winners of the Homecoming Award, which is given to the most popular team. As Dan explained, to win the Homecoming Award, teams should do whatever it was that the high school homecoming queen did to win her title.



Finally, here are the Phoenix Runs and Chicks With Kicks And Guys With _____, the final finishers. These teams arrived an hour or so after the awards ceremony, sometime after all other teams had finished. After being on the course well over 34 hours, I would have expected both teams to be tired, irritable and not altogether happy with us or the world. But here, as we have experienced elsewhere, the last teams in seemed as happy, if not happier, than any other finishers. How to explain this? At the least, these teams pulled together through adversity, and experienced the considerable satisfaction of completing a very tough test of endurance. In distance running, however long it takes, finishing the course is a victory.

Hanging Out

Each van is on the course about half the race. That leaves a lot of time in between to do nothing more than hang out, eat and rest. I took all of the shots in this posting in or around Stockholm, where I spent most of Friday afternoon and evening.

The top photo is on the corner, next to Gelly's pub. Throughout the day and into the evening a lot of runners seemed to gather at this corner. Gelly's was geared up to serve a lot of runners. Up the street is an ice cream parlor and a bakery that serves great sandwiches, soup and desserts. There are a number of shops that I browsed through, although I don't think many runners spent time looking for artwork or antiques.



The next shot is of a lone guy in a sleeping bag in the park near the river. There were groups of runners either sleeping or just laying around and talking in the park. This guy, however, managed to get away from the crowd and I love the contrast between his bright red sleeping bag and the deep greens surrounding him.




By late afternoon Friday it was fairly hot, probably in the low 80s. We set up upheated tent showers in the park, which a number of runners seemed to like. Others, however, cooled off in the river, including, in this photo, some of the WHORs



A couple miles south of Stockholm is a scenic overlook. A number of runners pulled off here to cheer on their teams and to rest. The grove of trees in this photo is at the rest stop, and obviously several runners took advantage of it.

Night

Pictured here is nightfall on the Mississippi. At night, the character of the race becomes simpler, less frenzied, more focused.

The first time we presented a relay, to my surprise the night terrified me. As a runner in the Hood to Coast I never had a worry. Even though wearing a reflective vest and carrying a flash light is a requirement there, it never occurred to me to be concerned with traffic. In fact, I typically turned out my flashlight and carried it in my waist band. As an organizer, however, feeling responsible for everyone in the race, our first night I was worried sick that a runner would be hit on a blind curve, even though we also insist on lights and vests (for which I now understand the need). Many races later, I have learned that both cars and runners are wary of each other, and we never have had an incident. Besides which, we have learned a lot about traffic control and used cones, occassional lane closures, and course routings that minimuze risk to runners.

For runners, the night has a kind of magic, even though it can be frightening. In Utah, it is a respite from the heat of the day. Even in cooler areas, it is welcome. Hard to explain, but in the absence of light, with fewer sensations, things calm down and the focus is solely on running.

Gelly's, a pub in Stockholm, is directly across the street from Exchange 12. Last year a band played at the park a quarter mile away, and not many runners heard them. This year they played right behind Gelly's, adding to the activity there and drawing customers. I stopped in to get something to drink, found tables full and a line a the bar, decided I could make do with water, and moved on.

I stopped by all of the exchanges between 13 and 18 to make sure volunteers were present and that there were no safety problems. At each exchange I found volunteers happy, doing their jobs, and runners still energized. The body finds an efficient rhythm at night, and it seemed to me most runners were moving fast, running hard. Teams cheered their runners on, honking along the course. The honking, disturbing the usual tranquility of the area, cause one women to call the police several times.

Vendors along the way stayed open late to accommodate runners. One convenience store operator made a point of asking me how long runners would continue to come by, apparently planning to see it through till the last had passed.

I arrived at Preston High School, Exchange 18, around 2AM. We use signs lit by flashing red lights to mark turns. I noted a flasher appeared to be out at one of the last turns just before the exchange. The volunteers at the exchange gave me another flasher to mark the turn. By the time I got back, other volunteers had replaced the bad light. Seeing nothing else to do, and thinking all was calm,
I returned to the high school parking lot and went to sleep.

The next morning I learned that sometime around 1AM a gunman started shooting in Stillwater, near Exchange 30. While the gunman was on the loose, the police cordoned off a large area that included part of the race course. Dan and Keith, one of our course managers, located a new route that bypassed that area, typed up and printed off flyers with course changes and explanation, and delivered them to volunteers to distribute before runners arrived. The course changes added about 3 miles. I heard one runner say she would have preferred to take her chances with the gunman than run the extra distance, but on the whole I think runners were impressed that we were able to react so quickly.

Volunteers

Loaded up with two generators, I drove to Fountain City, the location of Exchange 6. This is the first major exchange, where Van 1 meets Van 2. Because all teams meet here, this, as other major exchanges, needs to be at a location large enough to accommodate twice as many cars as the usual exchange, and have places for runners to hang out and rest.

At all exchanges, volunteers play the vital role of directing traffic, checking in runners, and trying to keep those cheering on their teams from obstructing traffic and out of danger. The latter is far easier said than done.

Ben Jenson, Dan's brother in law, managed Exchange 6. He is pictured above with his family, all in grey volunteer shirts. The rest of the Jenson family worked Exchange 13 (more on that later). The band playing Exchange 6 was plugged into a large pickup truck, the sole power source. Dominique, our course manager, was concerned that the pickup would blow a fuse, hence the need for generator backup. With Ben's help, I dropped of the generator by the bandstand. As it turned out, she was right and the generator saved the day, or at least the band.

Dan and Tanner have been encouraging volunteers to come up with exchange themes and show up in costume, with awards to be presented to the best volunteers. Pictured above are our Spanish themed volunteers, who managed the Exchange 12 in Stockholm. Amoung the more popular volunteers were the M&M ladies, and Elvis, who came with groupies in poodle skirts and a large cardboard guitar that runners autographed. Elvis won the Ragnarly Volunteer award, but he was one of many who totally captured the spirit of the race.


The trio shown in the photo above at a table in the Stockholm Park had it easy until the crowd arrived. The crowds of runners build up and disburse slowly, but at their peak they are frantic. For an hour or so early in the evening the normally quiet streets of Stockholm (population 97) were jammed with runners. At least six of us did our best to keep them out of the street, both so traffic could make it through town and also so that vans carrying runners could find where to park. Dominique finally strung tape near the exchange to keep runners out of the street, and that seemed to work. Before that, we might as well have been trying to hold back the tides.

I hung in Stockholm from about 2:30 - 9:30 before heading to Maiden Rock, Exchange 13. There I was to work the second shift, and was surprised to see the entire Jenson family working the exchange. Jim spotted runners as they approached the exchange and radioed their numbers to Peggy. Peggy checked them off as they arrived. Sarah sat on the curb by the exchange, reading the latest Harry Potter with her flashlight. I did my best to relieve them but Peggy wouldn't hear of it. She sent me off to sleep for an hour. When I returned, she sent me up to hang out with Jim. After another hour or so (time was a blur at this point), with Peggy still insisting that they were having fun and would stick it out, I left, driving to Prescott, where the local high school served as the next major exchange. There again the volunteers were fantistic. High school teachers directed runners and traffic through tricky turns to the high school. At the high school there was food, showers, and a room for sleeping on mats. With all calm (as I supposed), I pulled into the high school parking lot, put down my seat and went to sleep.

The Start

The tranquil view of the Great River contrasts with the race start, though the two are but fifty or so feet apart. Despite overcast skies and mist, runners appeared promptly in high spirits, many in costumes, including the Women High on Running (aka the WHORs), pictured above with the Faster Pastors. The WHORs, of Fargo, ND, bonded with the Faster Pastors, of small towns in Northwest Wisconsin, in a bar the night before the race. As one of the pastors acknowledged, there is always work to be done, and so they did their best to befriend the WHORs. Indeed, at the end of the race one of the WHORs told me that a Pastor intends to present a PowerPoint sermon featuring in the WHORs.

The WHORs were sponsored in part by Dick Beardsley's running store in Fargo. Beardsley is famous for his "duel in the sun" with Alberto Salazar at the most famous Boston Marathon. This was the race that both won, though Salazar crossed the finish line a few seconds before Beardsley. Salazar was never again the same runner, finally resuming form somewhat years later with his victory in the Comrades Marathon in South Africa, attributing his recovery to Prosac and generating considerable controversy in the process. Beardsley had his own struggles, becoming addicted to pain killers while recovering from a severe farm accident. Both are legends, and I was delightedto see Dick's name associated with Ragnar.

The leader of the WHORs assured me Dick knew of them. She added that when training, her team "chases Dick" and today would be "running for Dick.

After that encounter I met Dave Clements, the head of the LaCrosse Convention and Visitors Bureau. He had on a nice shirt and tie, and appeared to be sober, conservative fellow. I mentioned that the race had bought some strange people to his town. At this, he began laughing maniacally and replied, "It's a strange town!" I gathered he approved of us.

This year 100 teams ran, triple the number a year ago. Teams came from throughout the upper Midwest, and there was even a team from Arizona and several runners from Utah. I talked to runners from several different parts of Wisconsin, from Minnesota (mostly the Twin Cities area), North Dakota and Chicago. I hung out through the 11am start, then received a call to deliver generators to exchanges 6 and 12. I made the mistake of trying to follow Streets and Trips out of town, and soon found myself on a trail, looking for a way out, hoping that if I ran into a Wisconsin police officer he would be more understanding than his Minnesota counterpart of the previous evening.

Ragnar Relay Great River - the set up

I flew to Minneapolis Thursday morning. My flight was delayed 2 hours because of bad weather in MSP - two of three runways shut down, rain and very low visibility. Not what you would want the day before a race, but the forecast is for clearing. It has been one disaster after another in Minnesota, first the freeway bridge collapse in downtown Minneapolis that miraculously left "only" 15 or so dead, followed by torrential rains that were even more deadly. A week earlier, there were rains bringing up to 15 inches within 24 hours. Many landslides that destroyed hundreds of homes. Much of the damage was caused by water falling from the bluffs above the Missisippi, though the river itself flooded in some places.

The above photo is of the take off point for our journey from the Twin Cities area down to LaCrosse. Note the Orange Chariot of Sweetnes (COS) pulling the trailer with all of the gear we need for both start and finish. In addition, there were 8 additional vans for the course managers - two of them, Corissa and Dominique, have rsponsibility for the whole course, and the remaining six are responsible for 6 exchanges each.

By the time we had the vans all loaded it was late, nearly dark, but fortunately the rain had stopped. Tanner and I more or less followed each other to LaCrosse, stopping at a Country Kitchen on the way. My journey was slowed by a friendly Minnesota officer who ticketed me for failure to move left when there were emergency vehicles on the freeway shoulder. I learned that is a new law in Minnesota, and other than that, the less said the better.

Dan and Jamie, and one of our course managers, Keith, arrived in LaCrosse about the same time as Tanner and me. We immediately began setting up the start, in particular banners and scaffolding. By the time we finished, it was nearly 2am. Dan and Jamie went to their room. I went with Keith to another room, but already one of our managers was in one of the beds. I left the room to Keith and returned to the start, where Tanner and I both slept (briefly) in our cars. Promptly at 4am, Dan returned to finish the set up. Tanner popped out upon Dan's arrived. In deference to my advanced years, Dan let me sleep in to 5am, at which time I staggered out and helped with final set up details. Shortly after 6am, the first runners arrived, and everything was looking good, including the weather. It was overcast but the forecast was for clearing. The benefit of the storms was the temperatures were moderate, excellent conditions for running.

Why we do it

Next week we will present our fourth Ragnar Relay of 2007, and eighth overall. We may add another event or two in 2008, and more in 2009, including, if all goes well, the Big Island. This has gone faster than I imagined, and it has been satisfying to see something I dreamed about for so long become a reality.

I intend to keep a log of next weekend's event - the Ragnar Relay Great River. Before that, however, it seems like a good time to step back and take a look at why we do it and how it got to this point.

For me, it all started somewhere around 1985. I had resumed running devotedly for three or four years, and had friends planning to run the Wasatch 100. I couldn't imagine doing that event myself, but as a matter of interest told my dad about it. He then told me of a relay running from Mt. Hood to the Oregon Coast in which some of his friends at the office competed. I was immediately intrigued. The idea of sharing the burden and experience of a long distance with friends captured my imagination. A year or two later, driving from Sunriver to Portland after a family reunion, I noticed signs in Gresham welcoming Hood to Coast participants. Wanting to see what the race was like, I drove to Portland's west side, and saw volunteers dismantling an exchange. They seemed purposeful, engaged. I wanted to be involved.

I came home and wrote a letter to Bob Foote, Hood to Coast founder, suggesting that he consider presenting a similar event in Utah. I suggested Bear Lake to Park City via Evanston (Wyo.) and the Mirror Lake Highway. To my surprise, a few days later Bob gave me a call. He had a friend who had been trying to talk him into starting a race in Utah. He proposed we do it together. That I hadn't expected, but it got me thinking. A few weeks later - Black Monday, October 19, 1987, to be exact - I visited Bob at his office.

Bob was bursting with enthusiasm. The Hood to Coast was only six years old and already it had well over 500 teams. Bob was still a practicing architect, but he told me he found himself increasingly devoting his thoughts and any free time to the race. He had hopes of building a national relay series, but his Georgia event hadn't gone as well as expected, and he wondered if an openness to adventure was a part of the culture of the Pacific Northwest that was lacking elsewhere. Having grown up in Oregon, I knew that Mt. Hood and the Coast were magnets whose pull was irresistable to Portlanders. Maybe that was the secret. Whatever the secret, there was no mistaking Bob's passion for the race. He talked about the intensity of the experience, and the devotion of the participants. He obviously loved everything about the event. He repeated his offer to partner with me, and I returned to Utah to try to figure out how I could do it.

Not long after I talked to Bob personal trajedy struck when our young son Tyler was killed in an accident. That sad experience and its aftermath put everything on hold, but over the years I talked to various friends about partnering on an event, and imagined multiple routes. The concept of a course that I thought would work began to take shape when I bought property in Ogden Valley and learned that there is a dirt road connecting that valley with Cache Valley. (The photo above is an image of Ogden Valley on race day 2007.) That road was the missing link connecting Logan to Park City - almost the entire back of the Wasatch Range. Still, on my own, the task seemed too overwhelming and the idea remained nothing more than an idea until my son Dan and his friend and neighbor Tanner Bell decided they liked the idea and wanted to pursue it.

Dan and Tanner had already shown me they could do things I would have never seriously considered. In high school, they founded a volleyball club, discovered it was hard to find volleyball gear, and persuaded Tanner's dad Corey and me to finance their establishment of a small retail outlet where they could sell what had been so difficult to find. On one summer vacation to the Oregon Coast - where Tanner accompanied our family so he and Dan could participate in a beach volleyball tournament - I observed with astonishment as Tanner, no more than 17, called volleyball gear manufacturers around the country to set up wholesale accounts. In the end, I ended up with a basement full of volleyballs, knee pads and shorts and lost my investment, but Dan and Tanner got an education.

A few years later, on a beautiful September day, Dan, Tanner and I drove most of what would become the route of the Wasatch Back Relay. We all loved the course. We marvelled at its variety and beauty. As the route exceeds 5000 feet throughout and includes difficult climbs through mountain passes, we weren't sure whether many runners would want to try it, and, if they did, whether any would come back. But we were willing to risk it and began making plans for a race. Our first thought was to have 2 or 3 teams of friends and family do a test run in August of 2003. That fell apart, however, and I thought that, finally, my dream had died.

To my surprise, a few months later, in about January of 2004, Dan told me he and Tanner had started working on a race book and building a website. They showed me their early drafts and I was impressed. We settled on the June weekend closest to summer solstice for the race date, thinking the more daylight the better. Dan and Tanner presented me with the outline of a partnership. They were ready to give it a try. We set the goal of recruiting 20 teams. I called Lee Benson, Deseret News columnist and old friend, and asked whether he would consider a piece about the race. He agreed. With that, barely three months before our scheduled race date, we launched the website and were on our way.

Twenty two teams ran that first year. We started the race at Hardware Ranch, 17 miles up Blacksmith Fork Canyon south of Logan. My parents checked runners in at the start, my brother Ron enlisted Nike's support in providing t-shirts, and much of my extended family, including Ron, came to help. After we announced our first group of teams and finally sent them off, Tanner and I hugged each other and wiped away tears. It was a great moment, and unforgettable. The Wasatch Back has grown each year - to 315 teams this June. Participation in each of our other events is ahead of the pace set by the Wasatch Back

Three weeks ago we concluded the first running of the Ragnar Relay Northwest Passage. The Monday after, I flew to Portland and had lunch with Bob Foote. We had seen each other two or three times during the 20 years since our first meeting. But this was the first time we had talked at any length since then. I updated Bob on our four events, describing the progress of each. He was extremely gracious, congratulating me on what we had accomplished to date, and told me he thought the proliferation of new events was good for everyone, and in particular the Hood to Coast, which he figured most relay enthusiasts would eventually want to run. He recounted his experiences building the Hood to Coast to the largest relay event in the world. With undiminished enthusiasm he described his attention to the smallest detail. He told me of some of his plans, which included his daughter succeeding him as director of the face. I can't but admire his accomplishment, and at the same time feel gratitude that he invented a sport that has brought joy to a lot of people.

As we were walking to his car after lunch, Bob told me what he considered the essential ingredient to the success of the Hood to Coast - passion. He told me he always expected his daughter would attend an Ivy League business school. When she graduated from college, however, all she wanted to do was work on the race. She was born the year after its founding, and had grown up with it. She had told him she loves the race so much she would work on it for free. Recognizing a chip of the old block, he signed her up.

I've given a quick overview of how we got to where we are, but haven't yet answered the question of why we do it. Bob provided the answer. Passion. We do it because we love it. I have loved relays since I first learned what they were. I love watching them - in events ranging from high school dual meets to the Olympics. I loved participating in them. My best moments in high school were running relays, including an unforgettable distance medley relay at Haywood Field at the University of Oregon before the Oregon-Oregon State dual meet that our team won at the tape. I've organized and run with multiple Hood to Coast teams and enjoyed them all. Now injuries prevent me from running, but I get the same thrill helping with our events as I did running myself.

From our first Wasatch Back Relay, to the recent Ragnar Relay Northwest Passage, comments from our runners have been overwhelmingly positive. The enthusiasm of the twenty two teams who pioneered the Wasatch Back convinced us the event could grow and be successful if we worked hard, took care of the details, and improved every year. So far that has proven to be true. As a native Oregonian, I find magic in Mt. Hood and the Oregon Coast. But, as we have learned, those locations are not essential to a great relay experience. We have seen that experience repeated in the Wasatch mountains, the bluffs of the upper Mississippi River, the Sonoran Desert and the isles of Puget Sound.

For many of us, happiness is elusive and we are poor predictors of where we will find it. But if anything consistently produces happiness it is this: working with others to push ourselves to our limits. Overnight relays create that experience. They require hard work, planning, cooperation and endurance. My wife Tauni (pictured in orange with her 2007 Wasatch Back team above) told me recently that relays have been her salvation. Training for and participating in them has kept her fit and bonded her with friends. We have heard countless similar stories. We see runners perform physically at a level beyond what many of them thought possible. More impressively, we see runners encourage and care for, not only their teammates, but their fellow competitors. We have had volunteers who work many events tell us that our runners routinely show courtesy and gratitude that they rarely see at other types of running events. Whatever the reason, time and again at our relays we have observed people at their best. And so, we keep at it. We are thankful that runners keep coming. I look forward to many more Ragnar Relays, and I hope Dan and Tanner continue to present them long after I am gone.