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.