It has been a long time since I’ve been able to run a Ragnar with the kids but last week end I got to do it again. This time we did a Ragnar Trails. The normal road Ragnar has two vans with six people in each van and you take turns running 200 miles. The Ragnar Trails is a team of 8 people who each run three loops that all come back to a base camp.
I think I like the trails best because we are all together in a single camp and you can spend more time with each other. It is also fun that every person runs the exact same trails so you can compare your thoughts about the trail with each other. The down side is that your group can split up while in the car you are forced to be together. In the car you can also cheer each other on but in the trails you only see the runners at the exchange points.
Some time ago at a Ragnar where several of Justins cousins ran
with us Justin was handing off to his cousin Angela. He took her in his arms,
dipped her and laid a big kiss right on his lips. From then on someone got the
bright idea that we should exchange the band at all exchange points with a big
kiss. I wasn’t too sure about the whole thing but the kisses with the girls was
great but I’m still a bit traumatized from that big kiss on the lips with
Justin. I must admit it is the first time I ever kissed anyone with a beard. I
don’t need to do that again.
Another downside to the Ragnar Trails is the night run. In
places the trails can be rather treacherous and running with a headlight isn’t
always enough light. With only a single light sourced the depth perceptions is
also out. Dave Holland never got a hundred yards on his night run when he tripped
on a rock and split his hand open. At first I thought it was a scraped but once
they got it cleaned up it was pretty nasty. Justin ended up taking him into town
where he got ten stitches. It kind of ruined the weekend for him.
Other than that, the entire weekend was a blast and because
I’ve been training for a half marathon with Alycia I did really well on the
runs.
Kira and Justin flew Lisa out to stay with the kids while we were up in the hills running. On Sunday we drove home together. As we were heading up into the mountains coming up out of the desert we came across a truck that was on fire. The truck was pulling a trailer and the truck was fully engulfed and the trailer was just starting to catch fire.
As we pulled past the truck we
couldn’t see anyone with the truck. I was a bit worried that perhaps the
occupants were standing next to the truck when something blew up and were
perhaps lying injured in the ditch.
We pulled over so I could walk back
to the truck and Lisa called 911 but we had no signal. Another car had also
pulled over so we suggested that they continue driving until they could get a
signal.
As I walked back to the truck I
could feel the heat on my face. All of a sudden there were two very loud
explosions. I couldn’t see anything major so I wonder if they were the cars air
bags going off.
After recovering from the shock I
continued approaching the truck but I still couldn’t see anyone. Suddenly there
was another very loud explosion but this time something came flying out of the
cab of the truck and landed on the road in front of me. I think heard something
tinkling on the road behind me. That one did kind of worry me and I didn’t dare
go any closer.
I wanted to go behind the truck but
the traffic would have forced me to walk closer to the truck than I was willing
to do and on the other side of the truck was a cliff into a gorge. I couldn’t
see any bodies anywhere.
Finally a police car pulled in
behind the truck. I waited to see if anyone would come around the truck but no
one ever did. After waiting a few minutes I decided that there was nothing more
I could do and I left in all in the policeman’s hands.
I checked the news later on but I
could learn anything more about the incident.
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