Face Of The Relay

Now that I'm staring into the face of the Ragnar Relay, I figure I might as well show you what that face looks like.

Well, not quite, but almost.

Here's a more accurate description of my three legs (and sorry Tats for the scary-looking Pennywise pic).

That's the first leg. It's leg number 11 because I'm Runner 11 which means I'm running the 11th leg. I'm supposed to run this around 7 p.m. on Friday, give or take. So while you readers on Eastern time are settling into bed or already fast asleep, or maybe coming home from a high school football game, and while the West coasters might be finishing up dinner or sitting down to watch a DVD, I'll be in Middle of Nowhere, Nevada, getting ready for a run.

The elevation is on my side, I think. It's the figure on the bottom there, and it slopes downward for the most part. I anticipate some downhill running, maybe not like a straight drop-off but anything that isn't uphill is nice.

According to Google Maps, this is what the terrain looks like:

The race goes through highways and residential areas, and as far as I can tell the roads are regular roads that are used by people every day. So there are no special roads or trails for us.

Leg Two:

This one will start for me at 4:15 a.m. Saturday morning, about the time some of you will be waking up while others will still be in bed, hopefully with a few more hours of sleep left. This one looks like it will be uphill for the first mile or two and then a downhill shot of a few miles with a bit of rough terrain at the end.

Actually, the exchange point is in an Albertsons parking lot! An exchange point is where one runner slaps the bracelet on the next runner's wrist (we don't use batons in this relay, but rather bracelets).

The tail end of the race might look like this:

This leg will be in Henderson, Nevada, so that town will go alongside Montreal and Mexico City as new places that I've run in this year. The scenery will be much darker during my run, though.

Leg Three:

This is the final and hardest challenge, a 6.3 mile run slated to start at about high noon on Saturday. The weather forecast calls for a high of 85 in Las Vegas on Saturday, and this run will end right outside of Vegas.

The terrain is mostly at a downhill grade, save for the first half-mile or so. All in all, I think I lucked out in terms of terrain. Some other runs are almost all uphill.

A possible snapshot of my run:

A lonely stretch of desert.

So that's what I've got ahead of me this weekend. When will I sleep? I have no clue. I hope I get at least a couple of hours in between runs, but we'll see. I might be walking in a zombified state come the third leg for all I know.