Good info! I feel pretty good about 6 people who would do this and with whom I could get along. We are all pretty close and have traveled together before, so 24-36 hours is workable. Am I right that if they pair you up with another 6 person team, you really don't interact too much with that team. That is, your 6 are in one van and those 6 are in another?
Also, what makes a leg considered "hard"? I was looking at another Ragnar course and some of the legs and one that was listed as hard didn't seem all that hard. It was a little over 6 miles and while it was a fair bit of uphill at the beginning, it wasn't crazy and then the last few miles were downhill. So, on paper it didn't seem that hard...
They'll put your groups together with one team captain (the team captain also gets free stuff for races, just FYI) and then you decide amongst yourself what "Runners" you're going to be - I did enjoy being in Van 1 because even though it meant an early morning, I really only had one "nighttime" leg and then after my last morning leg, I was dunzo. We drove to the finish area, dropped our crap at the hotel and started boozing on the beach (actually, we started boozing in the van after our last runner came in but our last leg was very stressful because of the Band of B!tches in Van 2 ... but that's a story for later).
There's one leg that's the Reebok Leg - it's usually the hardest of all ... so that could mean the longest distance, the largest elevation gain or a combination of both. There's an extra medal for the runner who does the Reebok leg.
@CheapRunnerMike and I were both Runner 4 for RSB - it was the longest combined distance of all the runners (and that was before our third leg was extended due to construction along the course). I want to say my legs were 6.8 miles, 10.6 miles and 8.2 miles. All were considered "hard" because of the distance or because you wouldn't be able to have your van stop alongside you and offer "aid". This was my big gripe about RSB - for all these long legs, there was really only one aid station and they were all listed as "not van accessible" legs.
And, of course, because it's South Florida it was abysmally hot. My lesson learned was to always carry a credit card on me so I could stop at a Walgreens or a gas station to buy something to drink if I ran out of my water bottles and there wasn't anywhere in sight to refill. Also, there's a legit chance that will be your only shot to use a restroom if you need to ...
So, my second leg was 10 miles overnight, along the shoulder of A1A. It was miserable. I cried twice because it scared me - running along the side of a highway with only the lights of oncoming traffic to keep you company. Well, that and the sounds of animals lurking in the shrubs ready to drag your lifeless body away after a wayward car hits you. Here's a picture I took:
You can kind see the reflective vest of the runner I was trying to keep up with up ahead by the headlights of that car. After about mile 4, I had people just texting me random college football updates to keep me distracted from how I thought I was going to die.
That said, you risk the nighttime legs so you have a shot at running with this:
That was the start of my third and final leg. So, because they canceled Van 2's overnight legs, the schedule kind of changed up a little bit. For RSB, I happened to be up sitting on the beach in Jupiter while the rest of my team was sleeping (we booked our vans too late so we were stuck in a mini-van instead of a passenger van or a nice Sprinter van), and was texting with
@FFigawi who was a Van 2 runner for his team. I was able to wake my team up and move us to where our relay would start after a delay (we were one of the first teams to get to the start of our last relay legs, so we got to start rather quickly. I want to say we only had a two-hour delay, but other teams we talked to had to wait it out upwards of four-five hours).
The other thing I would say is make sure you have someone crafty on your team (or have a friend that's crafty) and have them make magnets for your team. We loved sneaking around and tagging other vans with our Team Magnets and seeing who tagged our van. I still have quite a few of those magnets, especially from other teams we became friends with because we were basically matched sets on legs. I also did all the grocery shopping for both of our vans (I was in Orlando already and all the other girls were flying in from Texas or Oklahoma) - we went through so many Uncrustables, jars of pickles, pounds of lunchmeat, potato chips, bagels, and I'm pretty sure all six of us in my van finished off a small jar of peanut butter.
Also, decorating your van is important - we checked off our legs completed and kept track of "kills".
Anyway. A couple more fun pictures from RSB - so I don't come across as totally hating it:
) but you can just get 6 right and then they pair you with another 6, but your 6 are in the same van???
