RAGNAR NWP
Several teammates, including Aly, Alyson, Nikki and Courtney competed at this year’s Ragnar NWP under Team Robberson. The experience is best described by Aly, in her blog post below:
“I could talk about the numbers since that’s what we seem to gravitate toward on this weekend – 202 miles ran, the pacing and spreadsheets of equations, zero hours slept, thousands of feet of elevation gained, 400 something kills, 2 vans, 3 legs, 8 protein shakes guzzled, 25 Gatorade’s chugged, 20 bagels scarfed, the handfuls of crack corn and I don’t even know how many gummy bears consumed; the splits, the time spent in porta potty…you get the picture. But I can’t quantify the moments and the numbers don’t tell you how I feel, so I think I’ll tell you a story instead.
Three years ago a guy named Bob Marvel purchased a Ragnar team from a guy who, to this day, no one knows. His name is Tony Robberson. (Tony, if you’re out there, you’re a legend). Bob had his van set and his buddy Dave Bushnell got to fill the second van. Dave filled it with his circle of runner friends – Jake, Baine, Rob & Alyson. And Alyson invited me because we’d hit it off at Ski to Sea. I didn’t know the details or the numbers but I just showed up because it felt like something I should do. It turned out I knew Rob, because I had lived next door to him and his wife Ashley for two years. It also turned out Jake knew even less than me, so I fit right in. Baine had us dancing and singing to Fancy and Jake had us hucking it and it turned out that the fast people were fun people. They were my people.
The team evolved the second year and after much debate and polling and missed deadlines, we somehow got stuck with Tony’s team name again – Robberson. We also got stuck with Leighton’s towel that year…Nikki ran BDP with Al and me and recommended he’d be a good fit. He was. Because he hucked it better than the rest of us and he can’t sit still. I brought Dani on board; we’ve been friends since Kindergarten. But I never knew until this year that Dani had invited Al to be a part of our pre-Robberson Ragnar team before I was ever friends with her. If I’ve lost you already with all the inner-workings and connections, that’s okay. Sometimes it’s hard for me to grasp the bigger things at play too.
The story continued this year and we added Nikki and The Gazelle and LB and Seth and at this point we’re Robberson for life. Highlights include Baine bursting out of the porta potty at the last minute to cartwheel and grab the wrist band from Leighton and hearing THE SONG evolve from Fancy to Bone Thugs Mo’ Murda and whispering we see dead people in the middle of the night, all mixed in with…deleria.
To top things off, Leighton and Jake fell in love and Court finished off the race in her zebra shorts and signature lipstick and sassy attitude. And since I’m feigning, my favorite numbers – 3rd place overall and 1st in our division and we dropped our average pace from 6:52 to 6:38, credit to the additions of some very fast women and a lot of character.
What did I feel though? I felt my stomach hurt from laughing to hard for 24 hours straight and when my quads cramped Baine and Leighton were feeding me salt tablets and I knew I only had to quietly mention once that I wanted water at the halfway point and Al would take care of it. I felt Van 1 during my entire last leg even though they were done for the day. I experienced all the best things – trust and belonging and selflessness and vivacity – all things demonstrated and earned via tiny acts over time, but I can’t measure them. Numbers are good and necessary because they help us organize and they create order and benchmarks, but they aren’t what built the team and they aren’t what made me proud and grateful to be a part of it.
My life is so full it’s overflowing into all the right places. Thanks for the extra pour Robberson – I can’t stop smiling when I think about you guys.”
KILL BILL 50K
Teammate Scarlett Graham raced the Kill Bill 50k over the weekend, taking 1st Overall in 5:31:07! With this time, Graham shattered the previous CR by over 2 hours (7:53:47)! “The tough ascent to Oyster Dome originally was referred to as Kill Bill Hill, not only a reference to its unforgiving nasty climb, but also tribute to a local ultra runner Bill Ball who used the rocky, root layered climb as a course route for Mt. Blanchard Ultra. So as a tribute to Kill Bill we are resurrecting Kill Bill Hill with a few twists…” The race has a stop at Oyster Dome, where racers can down a shucked oyster, and the 50k hosts 7,000 ft. of vertical! Results can be found HERE. We are incredibly impressed with Scarlett’s strength, and proud of her accomplishment.
