A Month Away

It's exactly one month away from the Ragnar Relay. On Oct. 9-10 our Desert Tortoise team will be in the Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada, getting ready to head out on our 170-mile trek.

The good news is that we've got our team filled out as we now have a full team of 12, rarin' and ready to go. We probably won't be able to get together again once more for a run but we're all (hopefully) training for it and should be ready to tackle this journey head on.

There have been some slight modifications in terms of the legs.

I am still Runner 11 so that part didn't change. And while I always had the most mileage of anyone, now it's quite a bit more than anyone. Runner 12 will have 17.5 total miles and that's the closest any runner will get to my 19.5 tally. I don't, however, have the single-longest run as there are three legs longer than my longest, which is a 7.3-miler.

Still, I'm not complaining. I'd actually prefer it that way. I'd prefer to take on some of the more difficult legs since I can handle it. I'd feel guilty if I opted out of the tough legs just because it seemed too challenging. This doesn't seem too challenging, but it does seem a bit daunting.

We're close to having our start times ready. We submitted some start times, the earliest of which I believe is 10 a.m. Hopefully we'll be done in the early afternoon on Saturday so I can cruise home and be back in the early evening. Sadly, I won't be able to partake in any of what Vegas has to offer. I don't know that I'd be up for it anyway as I'll probably be quite a bit tired.

On the chart, my 10K time and my mile pace were based off the run I did last month, the one and only time our team got together and will get together before the race. If I can maintain that 9:07-per-mile clip, I'll be done with my second and third legs in under an hour. However, I'm not sure how close I'll be able to stay to that as my second leg will be run in the middle of the night and I'll be on fumes for the third leg.

In some ways, the race doesn't seem real. I can't imagine what it will be like or what we'll feel like when we're out there in the middle of the night on our runs. Also I'm feeling guilty (of course) because I'm leaving Mrs. LB and the girls for a couple of days to do this and in some ways that's being selfish. But Mrs. LB supports my running endeavors and knows this is important to me, so it's all good. I think she's like most people, though, and doesn't know why anyone in their right mind would willingly participate in something like this. But that's me, I guess. I suppose I'm not in my right mind.

So that's what I have facing me. The last thing is to find out when we start so I can have an idea of what time I'll be running my respective legs. And then all I have to do is to continue getting my 30-45-minute runs in during the week and my long runs with the Lopers on Sundays and everything else will take care of itself.