by Alix
Run, Drive, Sleep?? Repeat…
Colleen has already told you about our relay last Friday. She and I and our 10 other co-runners crossed the start line of the Florida Keys Ragnar Relay between Miami and Key West. Approximately 320 kms/ 199 Miles covered by 12 runners split into two vans of 6 runners who take turns to cover the distance. The idea is that each runner will have 3 legs – running segments – to cover. Beyond the race itself, it’s exhausting because your running segment can be at any time of the day or night – personally I ran my longest leg at 2 am for 10 miles or 16 kms approx. Please tell me this is not necessarily the time that you go out for your Saturday jogging!!!
What an incredible sense of freedom to be among friends on a Friday morning and for the entire weekend waiting for the start of a crazy project for which you spend time, sweat and body aches for many weeks to come… Stealing time, having the feeling that you stopped your routine just for YOU … the Ragnar it’s all of that + many more beautiful or less beautiful things but always with a smile and the desire to exceed your limits! It’s also to prove that yes you can run a long run at night with the moon as your only company, incredible smells, dark all around and you, by yourself. This is at that point that you take full possession of your race, facing yourself, realizing once again that the body is in fact only the instrument of the brain – supreme boss of body and mind. And it can be so incredibily good to question yourself and push yourself farther!
The Ragnar is also a competition, 400 teams racing each other, the other members of your team counting on you – it feels good…but it’s also the knowledge that when you pass a runner who seems tired or may be suffering, with a few words of encouragement, will smile and filled with new hope run with renewed energy. That’s the beauty of this race, to be able to encourage the others. It brought me so much pleasure to cheer on my fellow runners when I was not myself running, shouting words of encouragement from our van and even getting out to run a few meters with them, at all times of the day or night, even though they may have been our adversaries, and to hear them say “thank you, that’s just what I needed…” I think that’s what makes the Ragnar special the fact you are sharing! The surprise and joy of hearing your fellow runners tap you on the shoulder at the finish line to thank you for the bottle of water you passed to them on their last run even without knowing them but just out of compassion for their obvious thirst…
And then the Ragnar is also to forget one’s appearance and need to maintain decorum and to get back to our basic instincts. What I mean by this is not showering, doing your hair after sweating through a couple of runs- “forgetting” to brush your teeth first thing in the morning, not worrying how you look and some obvious little odors…yuck!! Personally I brought a very refreshing eau de Cologne Guerlain, but I actually forgot about it…
Apart from the beautiful scenery the Florida Keys provide, the turquoise ocean that accompanies you during your long runs over never ending bridges, the Ragnar, for me, is above all else, to face yourself in honesty and to feel the incredible emotions that diffuse through your body as you run alone in the world under a full moon…
Translation & Editing by Camille Boucard